An ocean of ink in a single drop,
Trembling at the tip of my brush.
Poised above stark white paper,
A universe waits for existence.
Deng Ming~Dao

What a wonderful weekend was had here by all.  This is the first year in as many as I can remember that we had our shopping and wrapping finished early. The baking and cleaning done in record time before the holiday, and no major appliances breaking down the week before the day, so all in all we had a very relaxing Christmas.

The kids are getting older now and Christmas has become much less chaotic.  We get to sleep a bit later on Christmas morning and the tearing of the presents is no longer quite so frantic.  One of the best parts of Christmas now…….the grandchildren.  I love this picture of my granddaughter, Mckayla and Papa Woolen Rabbit.

Even though presents this year, other than the usual Spin Off and Handwoven Subscriptions, were not of the fiber variety, Christmas weekend was full of time spent with fibery things.

With waiting to see if the single Red Sock was going to fit my son, before starting on the second one. I got reacquainted with the Cable Moss Vest.  What can I say, other than I LOVE this pattern.  The Highland wool is always an enjoyable yarn to knit with and this pattern while pretty easy, is interesting enough to keep my attention :-).

I also managed to squeeze in some spinning time.  The roving was a purchase from last year’s trip to Rhinebeck.  I love the suble color changes of the Mossgreens, greys and soft browns.  I should have enough of this yarn when it is all spun up to make another Sara James vest to replace the one that I am wearing out.  Well, not replace…but in addition to.  This vest pattern is one of the most comfortable knits that I have ever made.  If I had one for each day of the week, I would probably just wear them….LOL

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday weekend in your corner of the world :-).

Merry Christmas to one and all…….May your day be Merry and Bright!

Do you notice anything unusual about this sock?  Probably not because it came out exactly the way that I had hoped it would.

Except……………………

It fits ME!


Now Mr Olive Oyl may have slender legs, but he does not have short stubby feet like I do.  Hmmm… the chubbiness of my feet should make up for some of the space, but I’m thinking it’s still going to be too short, so…….you guessed it.  RIPPPP………..

There is a reason why I typically don’t knit Christmas presents……LOL

So instead of picking the needles right back up and getting started again, what do I do in my true ADD fashion?  I start something new…..  That’s right, something completely new…..something I haven’t done for a few years……..fa la la la la 🙂

Eeekkk…………..Don’t tell anyone they did this to us…ok?.

You can see from the picture, what my weekend was about…..  Hannah being of that age where baking is a fun thing, kept me busy all day Saturday making all kinds of cookies.  We made gingerbread men (very funky looking, I may add), sugar cookies, chocolate crackle cookies, peanutbutter kiss cookies and my new favorite Lime Shortbread cookies.  You can find the recipe here.  Cindy has a recipe exchange going on, so go over and add a recipe.  Thanks Cindy for the chocolate crackle recipe….YUM!

I have great admiration for those of you who can crank socks out quickly….fast knitters….which I am not.  This weekend, my other obsession was knitting this sock.  Literally, my backside was pasted to a chair knitting in between baking, and I only got this far, but I do want to try and finish them for Christmas.  Silly I know to plan something so late, but what can I say…..the inspiration came late :-).

I hesitated to show this sock as you can see very clearly the problem I have with plain stockinette sock knitting.  It’s my nemesis…….ladders.  The pattern does call for a purl stitch down the back center of the sock, but you can see the ladder (and trust me there’s a matching one on the other side) that does not belong there.  Try as hard as I can to pull that stitch between needles tight, I always miss the mark.  Thankfully the recipient of this sock will not care…LOL. 

If anyone is curious, I did rip out my first attempt as I was pretty certain they would be too loose.  Given that I did not have a 2.25 mm needle, I decided to try a 2.0mm and see where that got me. I am thankful again, that the recipient has those Olive OYL legs.  They fit me comfortably and I know that they will fit him as well, but I think that they would be too snug for the average man.  2.25mm needles would be a much better choice and are now at the top of my knitting list.

And now a little website Randomness….

I want to share two websites today with you all.  The first one is my all time favorite Christmas card/song.  I shared it last year with you all and much to my joy, it was uploaded again for this Christmas. Go take a visit.………..it will surely make you smile 🙂  I know I do every time I visit…and I visit alot…LOL.

And now a bit of sadness and a request for some prayers.  Some of you may remember one of my puppies from last year….Bibbity.  I was originally going to keep her, but a little girl needing a friend came into my life and Bibbity (now Izzy) went to be her companion.  This little girl, Morgan, has a form of cancer and needs your prayers, as she is struggling.  You can read about Morgan and her Mom’s struggle to help her here.  My heart breaks for this family and the others who are struggling with childhood cancers, especially at this time of year.  Light a candle, say a prayer or send some healing thoughts to these little ones.

Did I say how pleased I was with this red yarn?  Yep, I think I did, but like a proud parent, I am saying it again. :-).  It’s not like I haven’t knit with many red yarns before, but somehow when it is yarn that you created yourself, each stitch jumps out and says hello.:-)

My dilemma though has nothing to do with the yarn, but with the needles.  The pattern, Gentleman’s Plain Winter Socks from Vintage Socks, calls for 70 stitches on size one needles.  I am using knitpics metal double points which I LOVE, love love….but ..the sock seems a bit loose and my son, God bless him has Olive Oyl legs.  I pulled out my wooden 1’s to compare them as the metal needles feel a bit heftier.   I thought that the heftiness was more the weight of the needle, but in comparing them side by side, the metal does seem a bit bigger.  So my dilemma is…..do I pull this out and start again?  Do I just continue, as I haven’t read any posts in blogland of these socks coming out too loose?  Hmmmm….. 

So close, yet so far away……


It is going to rain tomorrow here in the mountains, so I took my Wednesday walk today.  I had plans of killing 2 birds with a single stone on my walk.  Winterberries for decorating and Winterberries for photographing some sock yarn that I was thrilled with.

Earlier in the week, I visited with a friend, just down the road a spell and noticed these lovely berries as I drove past.  I thought to myself….."Self, those berries would be perfect in a few planters and they would be free."

Now figuring that it would be a bit wet with all of the rain, I wore my plastic berks. Seeing the puddle in the tall grass once there….yep, good thing I work these shoes……….

Oh dear!  I don’t think these plastic clogs are  going to do the trick……….I think I need me some hip boots!

My foot actually sunk down in the swampy bog up to my knees……….yuk!

Perhaps there is a reason why those lovely winterberries are still in the bog and not in a planter on someone’s porch:(

Realizing that winterberries were not going to be making the trip home with me, I decided just to enjoy what I could take home with me….. a little piece of solitude in a busy day.

A mild, sunny afternoon so quiet that you could hear the constant chatter of the birds and squirrels preparing for the winter.  I love the colors of autumn moving into winter, don’t you?  The grass that turns to warm flaxen straw against the golden highlights of an early setting sun, the evergreens and the cold steel grey of the streams with little whitecaps turning into ice.  I love this time of year in all of it’s crispness!

Ok….so my neighbors probably thought that I had lost my mind trying to trek into the bog with my camera AND my skein of red yarn…..but you can’t blame a girl for trying..LOL

Once home again, I found a suitable spot to take pictures of the red skein once my sopping socks were washed and hung to dry…..my little dining room Christmas tree 🙂

I am so pleased with this yarn as red is THE hardest color to dye.  My 25 year old son is a die hard red soxs fan, and I wanted to make him a pair of Red Sox socks for Christmas.  With all of the sock yarn I have kicking around here, I couldn’t justify buying any, so out came the dye pots and a few prayers. 

I think he is going to love these socks 🙂

It was nice to pick the sock needles up again and finish these socks.  After using big 10.5 double pointed needles for mittens, the little sock needles were good to work with again.  The yarn I used was one of my own that happened to be a dyeing disaster and something I wouldn’t sell.  Funny thing is, as much as I went ICK about the colors, my teenage daughter went WOW, COOL.  Must be an age difference thing…………

With most of my holiday and gifted knitting finished, it was nice to turn my attention to some quality ME knitting.  The pattern is Lisa Lloyd’s Cable Moss Vest and the yarn I am using is some Elann Highland Wool that I purchased last summer when someone was destashing.  I do so love knitting with Higland Wool!!

I absolutely love how this pattern is knitting up.  The yarn is crisp and the pattern is so easy to work with.  The dark color of the yarn was hard to photograph, hopefully I will get some better ones when the sun comes out again.

I don’t know about you all, but I rarely have to tink back a row when I am doing cables. When I am working on lace, however…..ei yi yi..  It’s knit a row, pull it back, knit 10 pull back 3.   The charts are structured the same way, so I don’t understand why I have such a hard time staying on task with lace and rarely any problems with cables.  A conundrum for sure…  Maybe a left brain, right brain thing.  What ever it is, I am happy to be sailing right along with this pattern 🙂

It’s been pretty cold up here, so it has been a weekend of knitting and Christmas decorating. 
Stay warm ~~

Did you ever have one of those weeks that just got by you?  So busy that you barely have time to think?  Well, that has been my week here, therefore, Walk with Me Wednesday became Thursday’s Trek. 

On Wednesday this week, we had a little visitor for the day, which prevented me from getting out for more than a quick walk with Maggie.

Yesterday however, Maggie and I took a trek down to southern NH to visit her breeder and get a much needed clip.  Maggie’s puppy coat had gotten out of control and rather than make a faux pas in clipping it myself, I opted to have her breeder show me how to do it correctly, as she is almost ready to go into the show ring.

After a successful haircut and a wonderful visit, it was time for us to head home.  However, her breeders live in a lovely section of NH full of wonderful old stonewalls, so Maggie and I stopped on the way home for a little trek in the woods for our Wednesday…Thursdays walk.

All in all it was a wonderful day.  The temperatures were bordering on balmy and the scenery was exquisite. 

Today however, is another story.  The temps are frigid and many parts of the state got their first snow dump.  (not us though).

The extremely cold weather reminded me to get my small package of hand-knits out to Lynne this morning.  There are lots of little hands and heads that will need to be kept warm.
Next year, my knitgiving knitting will start much earlier 🙂

Lessons in Frustration

Remember back this fall at fair-time, I spoke of this blue and gold warp that I spent the week working on?  I asked the question…..Amazing threads or loose ends?  Cheryl commented that she was betting that they were amazing. 

Well, loose ends is more like it…LOL.  I spent the entire week trying to get that warp onto this new to me loom.  Needless to say, most people got a real taste that week of just how difficult dressing a loom can be at times. 

Weaving is the easy part…..so what did I learn that week?

Lesson number 1:  DO NOT WARP A LOOM IN PUBLIC..(you can’t use curse words and you may need to, in fact you will use them)
Lesson number 2: DO NOT BREAK IN A NEW LOOM IN PUBLIC..same comments apply.


The little macomber loom has been patiently sitting in my kitchen waiting with it’s pretty gold and blue warp, I was so disgusted with the process, that I just couldn’t bring myself to tackle it again so soon….but today, I thought that i would take another stab at working on it. Arrgghhh

I can honestly say that I am really struggling with this Baby Mac, and even though I know the reasons why, I just can’t seem to fix it.  I love the idea of having a small loom in my kitchen and I so want these towels as they match my kitchen….and the cottolin was not inexpensive……but……I am just not feeling the love for this loom.  The little pinwheels are making me smile though…LOL.  When my middle daughter, Ashley, was a young child, her days were spent watching her favorite show…pinwheels.  Just remembering those days makes me smile … they were good days:-), but I digress.

I own a big 48 inch Macomber which I do love.  The treadles and harnesses move almost effortlessly…..a true cadillac of looms, so when I purchased this little loom, I thought that it would be more of the same, but I was wrong.  I bought this loom second hand and the man (who works on looms for a living)  who I bought it from had made a few little changes, such as the tie up, which is not working well….and the brake does not seem to hold the beam tight.

I will struggle thru this process, as I have a good sum of time and money already invested, but I think I am going to take a trip down to York, where these looms are manufactured, this week. I want to talk to them about possibly working on this loom for me and take a look at the 24" Add A Harness loom like the big one I already have and see if I like that one better than the Baby Mac, which is a much lighterweigh (less sturdy) loom.  If not……….then a trip to Harrisville may be in order 🙂