Knitting Iris

Of gifts (almost) given and received

I wasn't really even going to go there: sharing all the Christmas gifts,but here are just a few:

The piece in the top photo is a weaving that C gave to me, made by a local couple (can't find a link anywhere). I had heard of their work and read about them and seen pictures of their recent work in a local magazine but had never seen anything in person.  C went to their house/studio (which they call "the house that baskets built.") one day with a friend recently for work related purposes.  He asked them to show him something with lime greens and oranges in it, some of the colors I gravitate towards.  It was a total surprise. Apparently they sell most of their work at shows in the southwest, so I am floored that we have a piece of their artwork in our own home, "the house that C, and his cabinets, built"!  The picture does it little justice.

The window crystal spinner is something I had seen in a catalog, but would never have splurged on, and then on Christmas morning, E unwrapped the present from the moms of the baby I made this sweater for.  We've never even met them, so I can only wonder how they picked out something that "fits" us so well.  In my opinion, this is the ultimate toy, an ingenious gizmo with a tiny solar panel that suctions onto the window and spins rainbows all around the room ... fueled only by the power of the sun.  It really just doesn't get any better than that.

The pom poms aren't meant to be tree ornaments.  They're meant to be tied to a pair of ice skates.  A friend of mine ice skates a lot.  She wears wide flowing skirts when she skates.  She keeps us posted on the conditions of all the lakes, as to which ones are safe and smooth as glass.  She usually organizes a big New Year's Day skating party, bringing several boxes of 2nd hand ice skates, cookies, and cocoa to share with everyone.  Unfortunately, she's been walloped by the flu this week, so it probably won't happen this year.  I haven't even seen her since Christmas night to give her the pom poms.  They weren't even finished until several days after that, anyways.  Maybe they's have been done in time if I'd had one of these instead of doing the cardboard circle trick so there wouldn't be all that poking short lengths of yarn through the hole in the middle, but it is free.  These were my only handmade gift this year and I didn't even manage to pull them off on time.

O.K. One more box arrived in the mail today.  I've been eyeing these books for the past several months, watching what everyone else has been making, but couldn't justify buying them when there was holiday gifting to do for others and not enough to do handmade gifts for everyone.  Finally, I just went ahead and ordered these.  I would consider knitting about 75% of the designs in these books so they will be well worth it.  Time to start thinking of next year's gifts. 

Dad's X-Country Ski Stockings

A little story for those out there feeling a bit guilty for not finishing all the handmade presents they were hoping to for the holidays:

This is a pair of cross country ski stockngs that I made for my dad years ago.  I wrapped and gave him the first sock on one Christmas morning and the matching sock on Christmas morning, too ... a full year later.

I'm trying to document some of my earlier knitting, so I took pictures of these when I was back in Seattle in November.  They were made from Wendy Guernsey 5 ply wool, I believe.  They were the third pair that I knit from EZ's pattern, published in the Spring 1990 issue of Knitter's magazine.  The first was a pair for myself in opposite colors than these, and are long since worn out and gone.  The second pair was in red and white for my mom.  She can't find hers.  For my dad's pair, I widened the side section with the zig zag and added the diamonds to make them wide enough and keep the floats from being too long. The close up is of the shaping on the back of the sock.

I was helping my mom download pictures from her camera when I came across this picture of my dad all dressed up to play waiter in his socks, dress shoes, skiing knickers, shirt, and tie.  This was at a luncheon my mom had for a group of women on my aunt's 70th birthday this fall. 

Apparently he's done this one other time, surprising my mom when she had her Sewing Club over to their house. That's the norwegian version of a Stitch and Bitch, only these women have been getting together every 3 weeks for the past 40 years or more!  (sort of like Ya-Ya's of the scandinavian variety. These women would go to the ends of the earth for eachother and the husbands really only know eachother through the women.)  They've actually followed the trend and changed the name of their group to S and B.  They're all in their late 60's and 70's. I don't think the focus has ever really been the sewing or knitting, but nobody really gets much done at my knitting guild, either.

You think my dad looks cute in his norwegian knee socks?  Check out these and these beautiful pairs.  Gee, and I've only worn mine skiing.  I would never have thought of wearing them with a skirt, let alone heels.

Knitted Gnome

I did manage to knit up this little gnome last minute for a friend's baby and would like to try and make another one before the New Year for another friend's grandbaby.  The free pattern is here.  Other cute versions seen here and here.

Some little elves and gnomes have been wreaking havoc around here, so it's going to take a few days to recover.  We're all going through grandma and sugar withdrawals, and most of the snow has melted. Thank goodness for all kinds of new games, books, and toys for distraction.

Recently heard around here:

R:  "Christmas isn't really in the air until Santa is flying."

E:  "Does Jesus like monsters?"

Coversation with R:  R: "What are sugar plums?"  Me: I don' t really know.  Probably some kind of dried plum, sweetened with sugar.  R: I think Santa and the elves are magic enough that they can figure out how to get plum trees to grow at the North Pole."

Hope everyone survived the holidays. Be back in a few days or so.

Merry Christmas. Peace and Good Wool to All.

(image courtesy of  Jess at Scarf-0-matic, found in this post.)

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care.

C's father does needlepoint.  Yes.  His father.  When he found out he was  going to be a grandfather, he decided that he would make a Christmas stocking for each of them.  For his first grandchild, he picked out a design on an 18 point canvas, R's on the left.  He quickly realized that, from then on, any other stockings couldn't be done on such a fine scale or he'd be a blind grandpa.  A smart decision, I'd say, as R is only 5 and he now has 6 grandchildren, with 2 more expected before next Christmas!  We've been keeping him very busy!  E's stocking, on the right, is still very detailed, but maybe a 12 point.  (I messed around with Microsoft Paint, tampering with the real lettering of the names at the top.)  At any rate, he does incredibly intricate and beautiful work and these are truly family treasures.

Our other stockings pale by comparison, a wooly grey pair in mismatched sizes found at the thrift store for C and I, and the others that I made several years ago from thrifted woolen shirts and pants and that we use for holiday guests (3 this year).  Holiday artwork and advent calendars are "hung with care" on the bulletin board.

I'd better get off to bed so Santa can come and fill these stockings up...

   

Almost there.

A gingerbread house decorated by the boys, with their cousin and grandma (secret ingredient: use a hot glue gun to hold all the main pieces together.  It saves a lot of headache and time.  Besides, nobody really eats these, do they?).   Candles for grandparents with Stockmar Decorating Wax in holiday colors.  A wool felt tissue holder for a friend, based on a design in Martha Stewert Kids, Fall 2005, but made from a bigger 7" x 7" square to accomodate the real dimensions of a mini-kleenex packet.  Snow covered Mountain Ash outside the local coffee roasting company.  The wreath on our mailbox post out by the road was lush and full, until we caught a deer nibbling its tender branch tips one day.  Now see how gimpy it's gotten.  Our Christmas tree each year is a branch of an Aspen tree set in a bucket of rocks and with a blue linen moon at the top.  Uh, yeah.  In a town that calls itself the Christmas Tree Capital of the World.

And the pendulum swings...

I could go on and on about how this post makes me think and feel.   But I won't.  It needs time to sink in and process, and then I'd still be here hours, maybe days from then, typing away.  Just a few things:

Fireworks are wasted on the long summer days of July.  Once you've seen a spinning ground bloom flower skitter across the ice of a frozen pond, you'll know what I'm talking about.  That's why we stock up on July 5th and hoard it for nights like this.  (Note to self: don't forget the spinning ground bloom flowers this year.)  Sparklers and California Candles, it turns out, look beautiful, respectively, inside a wine bottle, and sticking out of the top of a headless snowman.

We put the lights in that tree at the top 3 years ago and have never taken them down.  See how the tree has grown?

Growing up, we had real candles on our Christmas tree, with a candle snuffer, a bucket of water, and a fire extinguisher close at hand.  Now, I light them only on an outdoor tree.

As for questions:

The ice candles holders are made with a bucket filled with water that is either left to freeze outside if it's cold enough, or kept in a chest freezer until frozen.  I've tried various methods of making the hole in the middle for the candle, involving disposable paper and plastic cups, either weighted down with rocks or a plate over the top, or with duct tape criss-crossed over the top of the cup to hold it down.  Sometimes this works, sometimes the cup pops up and out or breaks when the water freezes, and sometimes the cup is near impossible to remove.  This year, in a panic, to salvage these unsuccessful ones before our Christmas party, I took a propane torch to them.  Just turn it on it's side so the melting water can drain out, heat a hole right in the middle, and pop a candle in it.  You can float glitter, leaves, branches, berries, etc., in the water or leave them plain like this.

The snowflak(y) made from plastic 6-pack holders and a stapler was made according to instructions I tore out from a magazine, one that was probably published in the past 5 years or so.  Does anybody know if it's O.K. for me to share how it's done?  If I knew which magazine it's from, I'd just e-mail and ask.   I finally made one of these this year and would like to make more.  It was super easy and turned out incredibly beautiful from such humble and trashy materials.

Too-ticky was right.  Nothing is certain.  Last night there was freezing rain.  This morning the snow was hard and slick like a stone in a river.  Now, rain is falling on the roof above my head.

C drove an hour and a half in the freezing rain and darkness last night to pick his mom up at the airport at midnight.  When they finally cancelled her flight at 3 a.m. he drove another hour and a half home.  At 5 a.m. she rented a car with three other stranded people and drove the last 3 hours from Missoula to Whitefish in that awful weather.  After only an hour of sleep on the airport floor and only a little over an hour of sleep at home, C then turned around and drove back down on icy roads to get her and bring her here.   His mom hadn't slept at all.  Needless to say, there was a lot of napping today while I baked cookies, did laundry, shovelled slush and ice, and split firewood... followed by a nice dinner of shrimp and mussels (yum!), and our outdoor candle and fireworks lighting.

If you're travelling this week, I wish you more luck than ours.  My brother has to get from Queens to the Newark airport on Friday to fly home to Seattle.  Let's hope the transit strike is resolved by then.

Chris at Grandma Grace did some leg work and found instructions online for making the 6-pack snowflakes here.  Thank you, Chris!  My instructions call for a coat of white spray paint, too, but it doesn't really need it.

Also, in some places fireworks stands open for a day or two around New Year's Eve.

Do not go gentle into that good night

...Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  -Dylan Thomas

Listen and read here.

Or, alternately, from Moominland Midwinter, by Tove Jansson:

"Tell me about the snow," Moomintroll said and seated himself in Moominpappa's sun-bleached garden chair.  "I don't understand it."

"I don't either," said Too-Ticky.  "You believe it's cold, but if you build yourself a snowhouse it's warm.  You think it's white, but at times it looks pink, and another time it's blue.  It can be softer than anything, and then again harder than stone.  Nothing is certain."

These are all things helping to keep me vaguely sane during the long, dark days, but it's barely working.  I'm almost seriously (not really) thinking of  investing in one of these.

Elfin Folk

I made these 5 years ago when R was a baby, based on the doll patterns in the book, Creating and Crafting Dolls, by Eloise Piper and Mary Dilligan.  I modified the pattern a bit, upscaling the size and adjusting the profile of the boy elf's nose, and making pointy ears, of course.  Their clothes are all made from second hand woolen coats, pants, and sweaters, linen tablecloths and scraps.  The tights are from a striped t-shirt and the boy elf's boots are from a scrap of velvet.  The inspiration for these comes from a couple of places: 

1.  When I was little, my two older brothers spent a day locked up in my mom's sewing room, crafting a couple of elves out of styrofoam balls, felt, and the likes.  That night they staged a skit for me outside the  windows of our house.  They rigged up the elves so that one was peeking from behind some bushes in the back yard, and the other one "flew" down from the rooftop into the front yard, sliding down a string to the ground when my brother tugged on it from out in the yard.  He then ran inside so that the elves wouldn't think he was naughty,  outside late when he should be inside getting ready for bed. 

2.  The other inspiration is from 1991 when, after Thanksgiving dinner,  I spent the entire night, from 9 pm until 9 am decorating the Bellevue Square Mall outside Seattle.  The pay was good, but I was delirious by morning.  Anyways, the point is, that there were these really cool, big, flexible, almost muppet-like elf dolls that were one the last finishing touches to the decorating, hanging off of various parts of the props.  I'm sure the decorating at that mall is more sleek and updated now, but I wonder what happened to those elves... 

By the way, if  you've ever wanted to try your hand at making dolls, this is a fantastic book...if you ever come across it.  Simple patterns with options for modification, lots of pictures and ideas, and quite detailed.  I'll try to share some more pictures after the holidays.  Remind me if I forget.

Chrismas past. Seattle. 1930's.

My father is the  older brother in these pictures.  My favorite one is the upper right picture.  But then, I really like the third from the top.  And the family picture second down.  And the snowman in the fourth picture down.  And the scene inside the fireplace and the "snow" on the windows in the bottom photo.  Oh heck, I just love pulling these old pictures out around the holidays.  I'm curious about and nostalgic for an era that I never even knew.

It was the 30's.  My grandfather was a butcher, so obviously they ate well, but they couldn't have been suffering from the Depression.  Look at those toys, and the tinsel, and they had a camera...

My dad has pictures from his childhood, but few stories.  My mom has few pictures, but many, many stories.