~Making and Mending~

We had a mild conflagration last weekend. During a filmmaking session a halogen light was leaned up against the big puffy pillow that goes inside of Sylvan's Huggle Pod. It was noticed pretty quickly, but not before a hole had been burned.

So I thought: what would Kim do? Make a mushroom patch for all that green, of course!

I have not very gracefully been learning and playing with the New Camera. I am not very patient with myself and easily frustrated. But I still feel lost sometimes and annoyed with myself that I am not wildly overjoyed every minute I am using it.

The light outside this time of year is less than inspiring, mostly gray. Occasionally there are beautiful moments that I see on my way to or from work, but I don't always have the camera, or if I do I am usually rushing. I am taking the New Camera with me more often and trying (trying!) to leave a little early in the mornings---already early enough at 7 am!

The Lacy Baktus is coming along well. I am adoring the Good Karma Yarn: a delight to handle and the colorway is gorgeous. And for all of you knot-haters out there, I can tell you that I haven't had a single one in this whole skein. I have decided to keep on knitting, past the 23" the pattern specifies (before beginning the decreasing), because I want it long enough to be drapey and wrappy.

Oh and this bag? Adorable, yes? From dear Joanie, purchased at Nest, which looks like a must-visit destination. The fabric is light, like a pillowcase, with these sweet embroidered birdies on it. Perfect knitting bag because I can sling it over my shoulder and knit on the go, or sling it over the arm of my chair by the fire.

Like right now. At home, on my very first snow day as a teacher!

knittin

Last Christmas I got a lovely present of yarn from my Poppie. It always strikes me as so very thoughtful when I picture a man in a yarn shop, making his selections...browsing, coming to decisions about color and yarn softness and weight. But the truth was, the colorway was a little too autumn-ish for my rosy pink summer palette, and I returned it. Poppie is OK with that sort of thing, so I got a big fat credit to a small yarn shop in Northampton, MA, called Northampton Wool (quaint, totally overstuffed/cluttered with yarn, and without a web presence or internet capability?!?!).

So I have held on to this credit for almost a year. Recently, post-Christmas, I had a brief visit south and found myself with time to browse there (without children, obviously) for a nice hour or so. Being post-Christmas, there was that gloomy sort of feeling of thriftiness about me, but the extra gift of this gift was that I could go in and spend money on yarn with complete abandon! What a thrill!

I picked out a generous selection and somehow left the store with $18 left still to spend. I picked out several small projects worth of yarn, since my knitting attention span is for short projects lately.

new socks for me, moi!

mittens for me, moi!

(that actually cover my chilly wrists, thank you very much.)

a "warm-necker" for Sylvan,

big bulky Tu Ragazza merino yarn

this is picture #1 before I ripped it out and made it 2.5" smaller

(size 13 needles, 34 stitches around, knit until it will cover a neck and mouth!

which was a little less than one ball for Sylvan)

And an as-yet-to-be-photographed brand-new hat for Jonas, in the Fibonacci striping sequence because he is my math-loving, word-loving boy. Do you remember Fibonacci and the whole 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc. sequence that appears all over nature and whatnot? What to do about silky hair that makes hats skooch up on the head, "brioche-style" as my friend Lis puts it? One way to do it is to nag your child to yank his hat down all the time, always such a charming option!

So, thank you, Poppie, and I hope you will continue to pick yarn out for me, despite the very fun time I had picking it out for myself.