Kicking Off the Holiday Season

We all have our holiday traditions, and for me, I don't touch anything Christmas until the first weekend in December. On that Sunday morning I break out the 3-disc set of Bach's Christmas Oratorio and I'm off! This year my niece sent me this advent calendar with specialty jams and spreads behind each day's door along with a brief message like "Be Merry!" And after brunch while the Oratorio was still playing and snow falling outside my window, I worked on my sock - so very Christmassy. The knitting seems quite slow going to me even though I am now past all the increasing and have the ribbing pattern set up, so I can just knit away without much thought. Those are size 1 needles I'm working with so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that progress is not speedier. However, I am halfway now to turning the heel.

Now that more of the sock is visible, I can see how the hand-painted yarn's variegation is working to create a subtle pattern. But I can also see now something I couldn't before, that this is not just gray yarn of different values light to dark but that there is also a purplish blue in there, also light to dark, so very pretty. No plain Jane Gray here. Working on this has not just scratched an itch, but made the itch worse! I keep finding myself picking up pattern books and going through my yarn stash to figure out what I might knit up next.

I've just learned that my goddaughter finally had her baby, a couple of weeks late but just fine. She had originally told me that she planned to have 3 kids and that was it, and she was no spring chicken when she started. So she had the 3, I dutifully and joyfully made a special quilt for each, and thought I was done. But no, she has surprised me with a fourth. I will wait until after Christmas to get started on one but to be honest, I have no clue what I will make. I am so used to having ideas just waiting for an excuse to make up but I'm drawing a blank. Time I guess to start looking through my many books and patterns saved from magazines and find some inspiration! You can see the previous 3 quilts here, here, and here. If you check these out, you can see why I feel that I can't make just any old baby quilt. But hey - it's a girl baby so I can break out some pink!