Mittens and Paper cuts

Good morning!

This week I'm working on making dozens and dozens of tiny mittens - a mitten garland slash Advent calendar.  Find the free pattern here if you want, but it's really just a basic mitten, made over and over
and over again, and it's using up all of my random scrap balls and left-over bits that I never know what
to do with.  The fun part will be putting little gifts and notes inside each one... I'm looking forward to that
part.  Not that I'm not enjoying knitting dozens and dozens of tiny mittens, but I am thinking ahead about
what I'll put inside them.  Little notes that say - Hot Chocolate time!  Let's go for a ride and look at the lights!  Time to bake cookies!   Let's make a paper chain today!  Christmas Movies and popcorn tonight!

yep - I'm looking forward to all of that.

Not to skip ahead of Thanksgiving - which I am also very much looking forward to!   But to be a knitter

you really must plan ahead much farther than other people.  Because it takes longer.  More prep time.

Other knitting update - the handwarmers are done, and are employed at my desk in the office where they
are doing much good keeping my hands toasty and allowing me to type at the same time. 

Lastly, the only thing I'm reading this week is this book I got from our library on Scherenschnitte...  which I hope to tell you more about tomorrow.  I've been working on some things - some papery things.

Linking up with Ginny at Small Things.

and speaking of small things - Here are Johann's first bits of hand knitting.   We are both extremely

proud of these, let me tell you. He took the picture too, and wanted very much to be a part of today's blog post to show you all what he's been working on too this week.

Love my new little knitter :)

Happy W(inds)day.


 

Yarn Along: Hand Warmers

A nice week for knitting and reading.

The darkness of the power outage, and the dark nights that left me a little bit bored (in a good way!) and thumbing through random books on my shelf, led me to pull Tennyson and sit in the dark reading the long poem Enoch Arden for the first time.  A romantic tale of a shipwrecked sailor, who cannot return to his lovely wife and babies - and a triangle, and of dying heartbroken.  Sniff.  It was a good one.  I never pull these types of books from my shelf unless I'm bored and don't know what to do with myself, or what I feel like reading.  That's a shame.  I am always pleasantly surprised, and then I wonder - why on earth don't I read Tennyson more often?

This week I reshelved Tennyson, and pulled down Leaves of Grass instead.  I read a letter that Tennyson wrote to Whitman, so then I thought - yes, I haven't read him either lately.

So now I am - even though the lights are back on, and I've got plenty of knitting and other projects going that keep me busy in the evening.  

Sometimes, you need to stop and just read some good poetry.

In knitting news, I finally cast on for the handwarmers I set my mind on, and they are moving right along.  How lovely to not have to bother with the tedium of finger-knitting in a mitten and just stop at the palm!  I can't wait to wear them to work!

And what's on your night stand?  I'm still looking for my next good novel - something nice and thick. 

Haven't found anything yet.

Linking with Ginny at Small Things.

*** The yarn I'm using for my handwarmers is Lucia yarn by Stephanie at DirtyWaterDyeworks.  I am completely in love with the colors in the yarn, and the way they are working up in the finished mitten.  You can find her and her beautiful yarn here: http://www.dirtywaterdyeworks.com/lucia.html

 

the trees, trees, trees came down, down, down!

Well, we lost a bunch (!) of oak trees in the late October snow storm that came on Halloween.

We were fortunate that nothing fell on the roof, which is always a concern, living underneath the pine giants that we do.

One other thing we are grateful for following the storm is a new (if temporary) play area that the fallen trees have made for the boys.
They are having a blast climbing around on the tree branches, and swinging from the limbs.  And without the risk of falling from a dangerous height, we are watching them explore and climb and pretend to their hearts' content.  They come inside smiling from ear to ear, smelling like fresh air and trees -