Off and On My Needles

All year (2010) I had a plan. In the fall, I would make a kabajillion little knitted Christmas ornaments. I had my supplies collected and stashed in a bag ready to go. Fall came. I began knitting fiddly little hat and sweaters for corks. Trust me, the finished product is Waldorf-y and cute.

I was so proud of myself for being so organized and prepared. It was very unlike myself.

Then the beginning of December dawned. I came across the cutest knitted snowman ever. I didn't even pause to try to talk myself into saving this new-found cuteness for the next Christmas season, reasoning that I had a perfectly adequate project on the go. No, I dropped everything and set my sights on knitting an army of snowmen.

I created a pattern as I went and was happy with the results. I happened to be at my knitting club when I finished the first snow-manny. I sent it home with the mom of a four-year-old. Feedback was positive. Said four-year-old moved Snow-Manny to the primary cuddly sleep spot in his bed. Two weeks later, Snow-Manny had created a number of angst induced 'incidents' when he went rolling off on his own, becoming very difficult to find. While Mom of Four-Year-Old attended the last knitting club meeting of 2010, Dad of Four-Year-Old was building a little house for Snow-Manny to live in when he was not in hand, thus preventing any lost Snow-Manny angst ridden Christmas holiday nights.

Throughout the Christmas season, I managed to make a small army of Snow-Mannies. I was reminded of Calvin's snowmen when I lined them all up. Something about the arms, I think. The army was split up and sent their various ways as gift toppers and tree ornaments for family and friends.

Snowmen are officially off my needles, although I will be knitting another soon so as to write down the pattern as I go.


On Christmas Eve, I opened a package and found two balls of variegated Riot sock yarn. As soon as gift opening obligations were over, I cast on a Noro Striped Scarf (Ravelry link). It's a simple, mindless pattern, but I am so looking forward to the colour shifting effect in the finished product. This is a perfect project to take along to knitting club as it's a mindless knit - more brain power to devote to chatting!

So that is the extent of my latest knitting. Instead of actually knitting, I have been spending much of my knitting energy in careful contemplation of my Knitting Year Resolutions. I'm getting quite a list: I will be making a monthly knitting newsletter for my previously mentioned knitting club. I want to read two knitting related books to include in the monthly newsletter (see how I inserted some accountability there?!) I will be leading a monthly knitted dishcloth for the group as well. Personally, I am going to participate in a year-long Christmas ornament knit-a-long. And just for me, perhaps a self imposed sock club. I just need to decide if I will attempt a pair of socks a month, or just one sock per month. I'm looking forward to all of this, I just hope I can follow through!

Off to finish January's first kniterary selection,

~Mrs. A

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I'm Glad To See Twenty-Eleven

The holidays arrived - even though I was wishing someone would dump the last half of December off the calendar - and departed with much ado in our household.

Being predictably myself, though, I have managed to pull a few positive things out of a pretty miserable month.

The Most Surprising Thing literally showed up on my door step smack in the middle of our annual Christmas Eve celebration. It was my brother, fresh from a whirlwind 17-hr flight and 24-hrs of travel from Korea. And as fast and unexpectedly as he arrived, he's on with his tomorrow after flying all day today back to his temporary home abroad. His unexpected visit made for a very fun and memorable Christmas and New Years...and hectic. Definitely hectic.

The Most Enjoyable Scheduled Event happened mid-December at my knitting club meeting. I've been trying to pull off a local knitting club with some success. For our last meeting of the year, I planned a small Christmas celebration with decorations and snacks and music. There are such a nice bunch of people that attend and they were all able to make it for the party. A motley crew, but it's so nice to spend time with others who make the time and effort to be somewhere.

And finally, the Most Awesome Thing was the arrival of the household's first teenager :-) She is lovely...even first thing in the morning just before opening her birthday gift. I simply cannot call her The Girl Child anymore, especially since she is taller than I am. She will need to be Miss K from now on.

Other excitement included a New Year's Eve family challenge of skill, smarts and silliness in which yours truly emerged victorious...with a trophy. It was a team trophy, but a trophy that I can claim and my brothers can't. I'm not sure that something like that has ever occurred before. Pictures forthcoming....after the engraving of the trophy. Told you it was real.

So onward into 2011. Today was gloomy and grey outside. We had some gloomy on the inside as well. I think just post-holiday greyishness. It was a welcome quiet day after such a busy couple of weeks. Although I feel the pressure to make a resolution, I've decided against it. I have a list of things to focus on instead.

Happy New Year. I hope the spring-ish feelings of renewal and refreshment take hold here in the A house as well as with the one or two of you who happen to pop by here.

~Mrs. A.

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October's Book Club

I've been going to a book club for a bunch of months now. I kinda like it. Not too surprising considering that I've always been a reader...

I was a bit scared to go as I've not ever been a terrible intellectual, philosophical sort of girl. Oh, how I wish the deeper meaning, the prevailing theme, the irony, the archetype would all jump out at me and I would make really intelligent sounding conclusions about that which I have just read. Sadly, not gonna happen.

I just get sucked into the story. And I've learned that I truly do enjoy a good, gripping story.

Book Club started when a few of us started to frequent a certain coffee shop a little too often. A once-a-month excuse was born.

Book Club is 'led' by a very cool, really smart homeschooling mom who got tired of her stuffy book club...so she started her own! She invited people she enjoys spending time with, who enjoy reading. Attendance leans toward being homeschooler heavy, but that just makes me love it all the more. There are no rules or required reading lists. There are suggestions and sometimes themes. And this cool, smart homeschooling mom who 'leads' our group has a knack for asking questions that inspire discussion and - this is big - helps me to see all those things things my high school English teacher wished he didn't have to point out to me.

This month we 'discussed' The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. A couple of us had wanted to read it to see what all the hype was about. It's a simple mystery and I couldn't figure out why it had to be such a thick book...but then I figured it took that long to get interested enough in the edgy female antagonist to feel the need to follow her story in books #2 and #3. I'll read the rest of the series, I think. The writing style is very easy to power through. The gritty, raw bits - presented in a very matter of fact way - turned off a couple of the more conservative in the group.

We came away from our coffee and chatting this month with a theme: mythology. I'm going to try out Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad. I haven't picked up an Atwood book since high school...and that was under duress. Hopefully I've matured since then. We'll see. Others suggested included God's Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips; American Gods, Neil Gaiman and The Stolen Child, Keith Donahue. I'm inspired - especially about the Keith Donahue book - and look forward to wading in.

Some suggestions from the group follow. I'd not try to make sense of it as we tend to be a little scattered in our discussion. I love it!!

• Genesis by Benard Beckett -a modern Brave New World?
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - technically, this meets the requirements of some people's definition of a romance
• The Girl With the Glass Feet by Ali Shaw - apparently the final sentence clinches this book as a favourite for many
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Triskellion by Wil Peterson - suggested when asked for a 'quirky' book
• A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Towes - a more modern 'coming of age' story, perhaps.

I'm off to start the Penelopiad,

~Mrs. A

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