Happy Holidays!

FINALLY!!! School is out (a day early due to the "big storm") and I am focusing on getting ready for the holiday. There are only three projects on my needles for others, and not due until the new year. I have baked nine types of cookies with about 3 more recipes to finish tomorrow and a ginger crusted lingonberry cheesecake for the family party. Most of the gifts are wrapped...which means, yes, I did manage to finish my shopping.

I finished an angora blend lace hat and scarf, both patterns from the Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders book. If you get a chance, there are some great patterns to go with that pricey skein that you couldn't live without. But please, go to the website to double check for pattern corrections. I learned the hard way, and there are many corrections posted. They must have been in a hurry to get this out for the holiday knitting crowd!

If you are reading this, wow. I have been having a hard enough time checking up on my email let alone write on the blog. It is not that there are not things happening, quite the contrary. So much is happening that I can't get around to sitting at the computer.

Just the other morning, I remembered to send my registration for the Black Sheep Knitting Guild retreat. As I drove into work, I realized that I never put the check in the envelope! Lucky for a cell phone and wonderful husband, it was remedied before I even began my work day. The retreat is a big deal. I have been weeding things out of my busy schedule this year, but the retreat is NOT one of them. A chance to bond with my friends and immerse myself in fiber for the whole weekend is just too wonderful to pass up.

I hope that you all have terrific holiday celebrations and enjoy friends and family and even a bit of rest and relaxation. Even if it takes a blizzard to force the issue, a little down time and the holiday spirit surely are the best way to end the old year and ring in the new.

If Hanami is Japanese, why is the knitting like Greek to me?

Here's the thing. I am busy. I am busy all of the time, much of this busy activity is fiber related and yet more is not. So, in the midst of all of the busy behavior, the end of a school year, planning for summer trips and adventures, I agreed to a KAL. You know, Knit a long...so harmless, so well supported by friends and others who can share your sorrow and joy and pressure you into finishing what you have begun. KAL, perfect. Thanks to my friend Cheryl, who brought the most beautiful yarn that she dyed and the most beautiful pattern, the Hanami Shawl by Melanie Gibbons, I am involved in this project.

It was so harmless, in the beginning. Fun, friends, using yarn that I had and never knew what I would make of it. Yes, I had a $52.00 skein of Schaeffer Andrea Silk in laceweight, and never knit lace. I also had a bunch of lovely alpaca lace from Cherry Tree Hill, and more .....you get the picture. The pattern is an inexpensive, quick fix of a download and away I go!

This was two weeks ago.

I now have started the beautiful shawl, with all of my knitting experience to guide me. The pattern is well written and easy to follow. I am an idiot! I work all day, stay busy into the evening and late at night, in the poorest of light, I decide to work on this project. Is it a surprise that by following such clear instructions and using markers in the proper places, my section counts never make sense? Is it possible that with all of my knitted rows and unknitted rows and the perfect beaded cast-on (the second time around) that I may have actually knit the entire shawl, but only have one inch to show for it? Yes. It is true. I am embarrassed and horrified. I knit a beaded bookmark to prove that I haven't lost my touch (thanks Stacey, great kit).

Last night, after struggling with the perfect yarn and getting to about 3 inches of knitting, I realized that the wonderful, expensive silk from my stash was pooling and hiding the pattern. That was the last straw on this redone and redone and redone project. Not the pattern itself (I don't give up that easily) but with that yarn.

I started over. I found beads that match the Cherry Tree Hill Suri Alpaca. It is not cherry colors, but it is soft and softly shaded. I cast-on and began (did I mention it was about 11 pm on a school night?). I know the pattern inside and out by now, you would think that life would be a breeze. I think that I felt a little too confident, because I made a whole new batch of mistakes and put it aside (not frogged, just aside) for tonight.

Each day is a new day, each night, new also. A fresh start is what I always recommend to my friends, so that is what I have recommended to myself. I will begin before 11 pm and I will quit when I have a row that has the correct count. I will sleep without worrying about the next row. And as we are reminded in yoga, nothing is perfect. Nothing is intended to be perfect. Try to achieve a new level, appreciate what is accomplished and challenge yourself to do more.

I am challenged, and finding myself, strangely, enjoying the fact that it is not a simple act.