Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.-- John Boswell
This Christmas was not the Christmas I am accustomed to, but the weather tried its best to make up for it. We got a bit of snow last Monday which hung around for a little while and made things white and bright for at least a day:
I have two weeks off from work, which means I missed a lot of the holiday baking and gift baskets that fill the breakroom this time of year. I was pretty impressed with how well I'd been able to avoid too many holiday treats this year, but that smugness ended as soon as I decided to make a batch of
Ginger Molasses Cookies. After that, all bets were off... and the stretchy pants were definitely on. The worst part of it is that the recipe is super easy. It will be very easy to make myself a few more dozen of these later on:
It rained for most of Christmas Day. It was dark and dreary and I was sad not to be at home with my family. I missed my dad a lot. It was hard. I cried a lot throughout the day. It is not a day I wish to repeat.
I had a hot bath in the morning and distracted myself by listening to a podcast about comfort baking where they made this recipe for
Miso Buttermilk Biscuits. I had already planned to make a batch of French Onion Soup for lunch, but as soon as I got out and got dressed, I pulled out all the ingredients and made a batch of the biscuits as well. It was far too many for just the two of us, but I am not sad to have so many of these leftovers for me to eat over the next few days:
Meanwhile, having all of these days off have meant that I have been especially productive on the yarn front. I finished off my Sophie Stool last Sunday evening, and it is so frigging cute that I can barely stand it. I am very glad that I decided to change the sides to charcoal grey with the texture of the alternating rounds of half double crochet and single crochet:
I am also so pleased with how well my cotton shrinking hack from last week worked. It is worthwhile to make sure the top fits well onto the stool. It makes for such a nice, poofy top:
It now lives next to my knitting chair in the office where I can prop my feet up when I am having video calls with friends or just relaxing while looking out the window:
On Tuesday, I was struck with the sudden urge to knit Seymour a sweater. I've been saving this pattern for quite a while now and I just felt it was time to just go for it. I pulled out a bunch of stash acrylic yarn I bought from the thrift shop a few months ago and cast on in the morning and just kept working on it throughout the day. It is such a quick knit that I finished it within a couple of hours, but by then it was already bedtime for Mr. Seymour and he was loathe to get out of bed to model it for me:
He was in much better spirits in the morning and was quite happy to have a mini photoshoot (with the hubby standing behind me with treats in hand to assist with the poses):
Gosh darn it, it's cute:
I added a little hole in the back for his harness loops to stick out so he could show it off to the neighbourhood during his daily constitutional:
I also took the opportunity over the last week to finally try out the Ashford Sampleit Loom I got for my birthday a few weeks ago. I found it very straightforward to wind the warp and thread it through the heddles, though I probably should have used a thicker yarn for my first project... not that I have ever taken the "beginner" route for anything yarn related in my life. While it is definitely a long project, I am still amazed at how much I get done in an evening. I also like how this size of loom fits comfortably on my lap while I sit on the couch with my feet up. I always imagined that weaving would heave me out of my comfy spot on the couch to spend ages winding and threading the warp and that I'd have to give myself a specific weaving spot on the table to spend many more hours weaving and weaving to get a single inch of fabric. So far, this has not been the case:
It's wobbly and uneven and the selvage edges are anything but straight, but I am still pleased with how it all looks:
As much as I am enjoying being able to weave in the evenings, I am finding that I need to intersperse my weaving time with crochet or knitting projects to keep the monotony at bay. This is the start of a new bathroom mat I am making using the
Helios Mandala by Tatsiana Kupryianchyk as the centre. It's my first time using brioche crochet and I am loving the look of it so far. I think it will make for a lovely soft mat to step after a hot bath. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the result:
So that was Christmas this year. I'm glad it's is over with minimal fuss or discussion. I never ask for many presents, and to be quite honest, I've been comfort-shopping enough over the past few months to have enough of my own presents to last for a while yet. I did specifically request a niddy noddy to skein up my handspun yarn as well as the knitting book below by Susan Crawford (available for order
from her website). It's full of patterns inspired by vintage knitting patterns, but it is also a wonderful book showing Susan's own evolution as a breast cancer survivor who is courageous enough to model all of her own designs without prosthesis. I am so very glad I found out about her book. It felt like exactly the right kind of present for me this year:
I hope you had a gentle week in this strange world. Here's a photo of my little grinch to bring you a little more holiday cheer. I took it when we went over to his favourite neighbour's house to drop off a couple of gifts, where he decided he needed to take up residence on their couch for a while. Typical Seymour. That guy really needs no invitations to relax:
Onwards to the New Year. Have a good, safe week!
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