Ramblings

 Boy, this year went by quick. Not what I would call a very good year. I don't see them getting better any time soon either.

We have no snow. I can't remember the last time we didn't have snow at the end of the year. It's happened before. I just don't remember what year it was. Not that I'm complaining. I'm perfectly content to get rain while the mountains get snow, and the mountains have lots of snow on them. We've had a lot of rain in December.

I had a good Christmas. It was peaceful, and lots of chocolate was involved. I've got a new back pack, hiking poles, a portable dvd player, and a little kitchen composter. Everything is purple, which is such a surprise. My daughter Ruth made me a beautiful fairisle hat. I started laughing because it's the same colors as I used for her gift, which is a pair of fingerless mitts. Those same colors are in the picture below.

I am currently working on my Clapotis shawl. You can see some unraveled stitches.

It's supposed to look like that. I am about 2 thirds the way through. I'm on the decreasing section.

This is the afghan kit I got from Mary Maxim. I'm anxious to start it. I did the gauge swatch and I think I have gauge. I say I think because it's a little hard to measure a wavy swatch. Heh heh. 

I'm not quite sure what my knitting goals are for the next year. I still want to improve my tension and skills knitting mittens. They take me such a long time to make. I'd like to get to the point where I am with socks, where I don't have to think about it much while knitting because my hands just know what to  do. Lets see, I think it was around 12 pairs of socks before I got comfortable with them.

I want to get the afghan done, and maybe do a sweater or two. I also want to write some patterns out that I've designed. So many choices, so little time. I got the coolest sock idea. I need to come up with the prototype. Hmmm.....

Speaking of writing patterns, I've been educating myself on how to create knitting charts because I have 2 stranded patterns to write up. I was going to do it in MS Word until someone told me about Knitbird, which is a free program for creating knitting charts. I've downloaded it and tried it a bit. I'm very very impressed. It will do nicely.

I'm also working on a felt applique stocking I started last year. It was supposed to be done by this Christmas.

I had stashed my old stocking away because I was going to be done with it. So there was panic when I opened the stocking box and there was no stocking for me. Thankfully, with my daughters help, I found it. 

I've got all the little parts done. Just need to assemble everything now. I'm going to embroider my name on it first. It'll be easier to do it now than after it's all sewn together.

No plans for New Years. Staying home and knitting. Probably will watch movies all evening on Netflix. I've never been one to watch the party in New York Square waiting for the blinking crystal ball to come down.

Thursday I will be taking my husband to the hospital before the crack of dawn for his heart surgery. He's getting an ablation in hopes of fixing his arrhythmia. I am so nervous, and I'm not even the one getting the surgery. Who's idea was it to put two r's in that word. Arrhythmia. 

Live long and prosper. \\//