Cold Snap!

No series of unfortunate events diverted graduation, Christmas went by without a hitch, and New Year's has already zipped by--all of which is very hard for me to believe.

The Powers that Be were feeling extra benevolent this season, though, because we even got several days of Serious Cold. Not just anything-below-70-feels-freezing cold, actual cold, with overnight frosts. Need I say I was in heaven? That's me above, warm and cozy and thrilled to death in my vintage Pendleton jumper, Purl Beret, Flower Basket Shawl, and Knucks.

(Those of you who live places where Real Cold is nothing to get excited about may be perplexed by all the greenery in the background. I kid you not, that's how the scenery looks year round.)

Past years' knitting vindicated, I am raring to finish up the last trailing UFOs from 2010 and leap into some new projects for 2011. What's on your knit list for the new year?

Initiate Holiday Mode

Low-desert style. There seems to have been a small miscommunication about the appropriate holiday temperatures, but I have great hopes that will be rectified by the end of the week.

That's my Picture!

Happy Things:

1. This photo of my skein of Twisted Sisters yarn bought on absolute sale and modeled in my lucky tooth mug (won at a guess-how-many-teeth-on-the-table contest in my Dental Anthropology course) was chosen as one of the Ravelry images for the Avarice. As an amateur photographer who has a hit to miss ratio of about 1:24, getting Ravelry's seal of approval is pretty fabulous.

2. The weather has gone from bearable to nippy. Sweater season!!!



3. I am knitting Stella a Jaunty Sweater. This has been on my to-do list since last winter, and so far so good. I don't have a pattern, so I just started at the neck and am making it up as I go along. Stella has been very good about fittings, with one exception: when I go to take the sweater off, she tries to nibble on the needles.

Less Happy Things:

I have thirteen days to finish two rawther involved projects and miscellaneous busywork. Time to get Panic Switch cranking.

VOTE!

It's Fall!

Certainly took long enough. We're in for a few freakishly high highs before Halloween, but the mornings are cool, and on days when the clouds are obliging, one can get up at a reasonable hour and bike to the park for lunch and a new-shawl photo shoot.

Pattern: Shetland Triangle, by Evelyn Clark.
Yarn: Mountain Colors Twizzle in Ruby River

Grand Excitement

I have this very sweet, courteous coworker. We only work together on Sundays, and every Sunday, he asks if I did anything exciting that week. Considering I'm in classes 40+ out of 52 weeks every year, my response usually requires a pretty liberal interpretation of "exciting." And yet he still asks--that is dedicated belief in the existence of exciting.

This past week, what passed for exciting was taking the car and driving out to The Hinterlands to the only independent fabric store around, which is also just about as far as the nearest big-box fabric store (just in the totally opposite direction).

Technically, the Hinterlands is a rawther large city. It sprawls like no other, though, so it's more like several different cities, the closest rubbing right up against where I live, the farthest touching the mountains rimming the valley. I think of it as The Hinterlands because it takes so long to get to the downtown, unless, of course, you have a death wish and want to take the freeway out.

Anyways--the excitement of driving to the Hinterlands is the signage. Somehow, they have managed to retain more of their old signs than any other city around, so as you drive in, you get a peek of what Arizona was like before the masses of people washed in, making tiny one-road downtowns explode into big sprawling cities. Driving by, looking at signs for motels, little florists, car repair places, and the fabric shop above, you almost feel like it would be possible to pull off all the 21st century grunge like an old carpet and reveal the city as it was, filled with cars the size of ocean liners and men in crisp chinos opening doors for women in full skirts and poufy hair-dos.

Also exciting was that this trip ended with me hitting the button jackpot. You wouldn't think finding buttons for a sweater is all that hard--after all, most LYSs have their own little button corner, and then there's the venerable Button Tin in my closet. Au contraire. I've been on the lookout for buttons for Monita's Christmas sweater since January, and it took me until last weekend to find The Buttons. 8 months later, Christmas gifts are officially, unquestionably done.

Now that's exciting.

The Decency of Snails

Well, summer is still hanging on for dear life here, but fall has reclaimed the early mornings. The end must be near...



I have not given in to the wooly shawl yet. Instead, inspired by the a) amigurumi of a crocheting classmate on Ravelry and b) a long-abiding desire to use up the last of the Rowan Calmer that gave me such trouble in Christmas 2007, I pulled out my copy of Amigurumi Knits and knit a snail. Hansi is a knitter after my own heart in her unwavering dedication to grafting and picking up stitches rather than seaming. That whole snail has one seam that is not kitchener--where the shell attaches to the mantle. Genius.



When I started the project, I thought I could make it just a slug. It would be a sort of knitting therapy to get over the plague of slugs that coated the walkway to Dalkeith Estate. And the fields surrounding the estate, and the forest surrounding the fields. As a general rule, I'm ok with gross, but these slugs were too large, too slimy, and too numerous to be viewed with anything but a sort of horrified fascination. Seriously, there were so many slugs you had to keep your eyes on the ground walking in, out, and around the estate. Unless you happened to be ok with the thought of stepping on multiple slugs in the course of your walk, which I was absolutely not.



I got the slug part done and discovered that it looked quite indecently naked. How that is possible with a knitted toy, I'm not sure, but it was undeniably indecent. So it had to become a snail. There were some snails at Dalkeith, too. They were far fewer and farther in between, and somehow, less ugh-worthy than their shell-less cousins. Maybe I just like my gastropods clothed. Whatever the reason, it was a small matter to whip up the shell, and voilà--snail.

Pinky the Snail has quite happily taken up residence on my nightstand beside the Hansigurumi Loch Ness Monster, and I'm even thinking I could round out my collection of strange knitted toys--and use up the last of that Calmer--by knitting a little pink nautilus, or perhaps a go traditional with a chubby pink mouse. The possibilities!