Pattern:  Elisabeth Headband
Designed by:  Chic Knits
Yarn:  Woolen Rabbit ~ WW Kashmir
Colorway:  Chimney Sweep

A few weeks ago, Ashley randomly sent me a pin from Pinterest with no note attached.  Hmmm, I thought.  She must be hoping that I can make something like this for her, so I logged onto Ravelry and found this great e-book designed by Bonnie Marie Burns of Chic Knits.  Included in the book was this headband that was pretty darn close to the one Ashley liked. The nice part of being a yarn dyer is you can wander out to the shop and just pick a yarn that you like and start knitting.  The yarn I chose was WW Kashmir, which is super soft to have resting on your forehead.  Such a quick knit taking only 2 days to complete which made a nice extra Christmas present that I knew would make Ashley smile.

I snagged this picture from Ashley's FB page.  It shows off the cabling design nicely.  My two younger girls loved it enough to ask me to knit each one of them one too. 
After that I will be back at the cabled sweater that I needed a little bit of a break from, so that I can still love it. 🙂

Happy Knitting!!!

Christmas is always such a magical time, but this year Christmas for me was about the grandchildren.  It's a special time to enjoy with family, but it's always just that much richer watching the children enjoy and anticipate Christmas and all that it brings.  As usual our Christmas eve party was full of festive food, spirits and good conversation…and of course there was homemade eggnog with Kraken….so much fun!

Asher dressed in his little Santa Claus suit was just to cute for words.

  
McKayla the oldest of my grandchildren seems like she grows a little taller each and every time I see her.  She is a sweet girl who loves sports and all things "girly".  I so enjoy her company!  She was very happy when a box of Uggs was under the tree with her name on it.

…and then there is Aidan, our Christmas boy.  Aidan was born on Christmas 10 years ago at 10 minutes till midnight.  He is such a dear young man, who is always thinking of others before himself.  His favorite gift last year was shopping for Angels and Elves instead of receiving a gift.  Angels and Elves is an organization that makes sure all of the children in our Valley have some Christmas gifts under the tree on Christmas morning.
Aidan loves my yarn more than anyone else as well….that scores an A+ with me!

…and of course there were cookies!!!

Christmas morning after the opening of presents and the ritual cinnamon rolls and coffee, we headed down to visit my son, Miles and his family with my parents.  It makes my heart smile to see them all happy in their new home and life that they worked so hard for.

Big brother Jax with little Finley are just so sweet together.  We were hurrying to get this picture before Jax had to leave with his dad, so Finn was complaining a bit, but they are so cute together.  Jax is very gentle and loving with his baby brother. 

One of Jax's gifts that he picked out himself at his schools' Christmas sale, is the scarf that my son, Miles is wearing in his picture.  Jax is a good kid and Finn, just precious

My most favorite pictures of the day however is this one of my Mom holding little Finley.  This all started with my parents and it is so wonderful when we can all get together and enjoy some Christmas Spirit.

We had a wonderful Christmas here at casa Woolen Rabbit. 
I hope that your holiday was a festive and peaceful one as well!!

Wonderland…

A few years ago for Christmas, Ashley gave Ken and I a few movies.  One we watched one night when she was here and the other has sadly sat in the movie drawer.  Not because we didn't want to watch it, but we kind of forgot about it…….and we both have such a hard time figuring out the blu ray player that came free with the TV I bought a few years ago.  I know…pathetic, right?

Well, the other day, Ashley sent me this trailer for the movie, and feeling badly that I hadn't watched it yet, I suggested to Ken that we should do a movie night.  So I went out and bought some easy appetizers, got Ken a nice bottle of Ale and made myself a martini and a movie night we had. 
Wow….what a great little movie once your brain gets in sync with the sub-titles.  The best part about the sub-titles is that I was not able to multi-task.  I have a hard time just watching tv without doing something else, but what happens is I am only partially present in the moment.  Not with this movie and I loved it!

Thanks Ashley!!

Passion is a prelude to
Years of gradual unfolding
Den Ming~Dao

We are expecting a good dumping of snow this weekend, so I will stay tucked inside wrapping presents, baking cookies and embracing some Christmas Spirit.

Have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!

Most every year we get our Christmas tree at a little place in Fryeburg, Maine, called Westons.  They cut the trees fresh almost every day and it's always easy to find a beautifully shaped one.  Last year however, I remembered that our tree seemed dry and the ones that were cut here felt a bit dry as well, so this year we opted to head down to their tree grove to cut one down ourselves. We never realized that this was an option until my oldest daughter and her family did this last weekend.

When the kids were little we always cut our tree fresh.  I used to be very picky about our tree, so we would traipse around the grove for what felt like forever until the perfect tree would jump out at me.  We would then head inside for some hot mulled cider while we paid the bill.  That little tree place closed a number of years ago, which is why we stopped cutting down our own.

What you see on Ken's face is pure happiness.  Happy that it took me only a few minutes to find just the right tree instead of the anticipated hour.  Yes, I would have liked it to be bigger and fuller, but with our ever growing family, we need space to fit them all in the living room along with the tree..ha!  This is the first year that we have hunted for a tree without the kids.  It felt strange and a bit sad, but it was SOO cold, we didn't linger long enough to get too nostalgic.

After we got the tree into the stand to settle it's branches down before decorating, we headed out once again, this time to find winterberries.  Remember now, it was pretty darn cold and winterberries seem to like boggy areas that are not always easy to get to without getting pretty wet.  Here's Ken struggling not to fall knee deep into the barely frozen bog.

You know your man loves you when he will go to these lengths to get something that you want, when all the while you are snapping off pictures.  We weren't sure if picking berries like this on the side of the road was totally legal, so we didn't waste too much time here either.  The irony of it all…..I noticed a patch of them on the side of the pond right across our road….go figure..sheesh!

We had a fun adventure Saturday.  It felt different without children with us, but we made it fun and that's what counts in the end, right?

Have fun with your holiday decorating!

 

Tranquility

So, on to the next thing I have been working on…the on going Sweater Saga.  You may remember that I worked as a vendor at Amy Herzog's make.wear.love retreat back in September.  As a vendor I was also able to attend her classes which were great and was introduced to her new CustomFit software, which will customize a pattern just for you.  Your measurements and your yarn swatch.

In my excitement, I quickly cast on the Birch Bark sweater, which Amy had previously knit in my Frolic yarn.  I tweaked the custom measurements a bit because I knew I wanted the sweater and the sleeves to be a little longer, but other than that, I just sailed along.  Finished the back and the sleeves fairly fast.  Then it was on to the front, which slowed me down a bit as there was a good amount of cabling and I tried my best to pay attention.  Usually if I make a mistake, it's having the cables going the same way as in "SS", so it was with a little bit of apprehension when I proudly put up a picture of my front cables.  Apprehension because I was afraid there was a mistake, but if there was one I couldn't readily see it……well, you know where this story is going, right?

Yep….a more experienced knitting friend of mine pointed out my error.  If you look at where the arrow is in the first picture, there it is.  I went over instead of under…aggh!  It actually took me a while to "see" it and when I showed it to a number of friends and family, most of them didn't notice it either.  I went back and forth…do I live with it or do I rip it out?  Me, I could live with it, really…but, I use sweaters like this at shows for yarn displays and I know experienced knitters would see it as well, so in the end, I knew what I had to do.

My friend who had pointed out the error had actually come up with a fix that would not have me pulling the entire front out, but we just couldn't find the right time to get together with the birth of the baby and the holidays. Knowing that I really want this sweater finished so I can move onto new things, I took that plunge and that pesky cable is now fixed. (actually, I had to pull this back even further after I took this picture because I hadn't gone down far enough..blech)  I don't think I will make that same mistake again…here's hoping that I won't make a different one!  You have to love that ADD brain..or NOT..ha!

I am finally getting caught up and coming up for air, which means I am going to share some of what has been happening here at The Woolen Rabbit, instead of the drive by posts of late.

Many of you are my facebook or ravelry friends and know that we welcomed a new little family member into our lives and hearts, but I wanted to share this here with you all as well.

Little Mr. Finley Allen Louis Spalding made his appearance on November 22nd, which also happens to be my youngest daughter Hannah's birthday.  She is so happy to share her birthday with this little guy.

Finley arrived 2 weeks sooner than expected and his delivery was a slow one, but what a sweet treat he is.  Such a calm little baby and look at all of that hair!  Amazing!  Our little babies are usually pretty darn bald…so it was such a surprise to see.

I traveled back and forth to Southern NH to be with them and because my middle daughter, Courtney is so close at UNH, she was able to come and get to know her newest little nephew.  I think she was smitten with him, even though she thinks all babies look like little raisins..ha!

We all feel so happy and blessed to have started off the holiday season with such a little treasure.  Welcome to this crazy family, little Finley!!

…to be so busy!  I have a few different posts that I want to share with you this week, but I haven't had time to process the pictures, so I thought I would leave you all with a song from another one of my talented girls.  They never cease to amaze me!
Thank you Ashley!