New Year's Odyssey

Passage home? Never. Surely you’re plotting something else, goddess, urging me -- in a raft -- to cross the ocean’s mighty gulfs. So vast, so full of danger not even the deep-sea ships can make it through, swift as they are and buoyed up by the winds of Zeus himself. --Odysseus, The Odyssey, Book 5

What is the best way to start this post? 

"Two steps forward, three steps back." 

"Easy come, easy go."

"Anything worth doing is worth doing twice."

Nah. None of those things will do it. I think it's best to say that I'd rather things were different. But there you are.

We came back to Vancouver Island on December 31st, which is a travel day we have often booked as it is usually quiet and easy to navigate and with only a fraction of the fuss that comes in the travel days before Christmas. This was not the case this year, as we found out along with much of the other of the world's travelers these days. Things were definitely NOT quiet, NOT easy, and VERY fussy indeed.

I won't go into all the details, but we were very, very grateful to be able to get home after experiencing flight cancellations, broken baggage carousels, lost baggage, found baggage, a very long and expensive taxi ride, and a two-hour ferry ride home. We got home, took off the KN95 masks we'd been wearing for 11 hours, got showered, and got into bed around midnight on New Year's Eve. 

We heard one firework. Woop woop.

The next day, we went out to dig ourselves out of the two feet of snow we received while we were away:

And then we arranged ourselves back into normal position:

 

We were relatively lucky in that a) we were able to get home and b) neither of us seem to have contracted an illness whilst traveling... but I don't think we're going to attempt any kind of travel in December ever again.

We ended up having quite a nice stay in Winnipeg regardless of the travel woes to and from the city. It was nice to have time to be with my family without having to be anywhere and without having to accomplish anything. I didn't even have any knitting or crochet to work on while I was there, which was a very weird state for me to be in. I don't know what I did before I learned to knit. Maybe I watched a lot of tv... at least, that's what I did a lot while I was in Winnipeg. And while I enjoyed it, it was just... weird.

After a couple of days of not crafting, I found that I couldn't stand it any longer. I plunged myself hours and hours of researching another project I've had in my head for a while now. A couple of years ago, I got into the car one frosty morning and was confronted with the sight of the windshield covered in feathery fronds of frost:

 

And ever since I saw it, I've been dreaming of figuring out a way to work that into a sweater. I spent several hours in my family's house searching online, making sketches, lying in bed daydreaming, and staring into space trying to figure it out. I haven't quite put my finger on it just yet, but I found a few sweater patterns and knitting stitch dictionaries that are coming close. And while I don't have anything to show for it yet, I enjoyed the deep dive of research that these kinds of projects often bring me to. I think it will be a very satisfying knit if I ever figure it out...

I still haven't picked up any knitting needles since I got back to Vancouver Island because I had been saving a very different kind of project for this week. I don't go back to work until next Monday, so I thought it would be a good time to start working on a wee embroidery kit I received a few months ago from Megan Ivy Griffiths, a pattern designer, illustrator, and embroiderer in the UK. I have admired her work for a couple of years now, and when the opportunity to order a kit from her arose I did not hesitate. When it arrived, it was so beautifully packaged that it felt really special opening it:

Embroidery is a craft that my mother tried to teach me when I was a child but that I was not very good at and lacked the motor skills and patience to get ahead with. I have regretted that ever since... until I decided it was high time that I stopped regretting and started doing something about it. 

I was a bit nervous that I'd jumped way into the deep end with this kit, but once I got started I realized that this was a good way to dip my toes into this craft. So far, it has entailed a lot of outlining and backstitches, which has been a good way for me to practice stitching in straight lines. I'm also very proud of my first attempts at satin stitch in the mushrooms and the leaves. It forces me to be very precise and to take my time to get my needle in exactly the right spot, to breathe deeply, and to relax my eyes as I peer down into all of the fine threads:

And when my eyes have finally had enough of the tiny stitches, I've been reading through the first issue of a magazine subscription that I decided to treat myself to back in October. I'll admit that I wanted it for the artwork on the front cover, but when I learned more about the magazine, I knew I wanted to spend more time reading about it. "Taproot Magazine is our ad-free independently published print magazine focused on food, farm, family, and craft."

And really, that's all I really wanted my holiday season to be about: food, family and craft. And I'm glad to say I got it, even though it was a bit of an Odyssey to get there.

I wish you all the very best in the coming year. I won't promise it will be better or easier, but I will promise to be alongside you here on my blog as much as I can. It's nice to have somewhere to sit and share the ideas that are so dear to me. Thanks for hanging around. And Happy New Year.