What do you do if you don’t have time to knit the whole D@ng sweater in time for Christmas?  Knit a sample one:

This took about an hour to knit, which means there really is time to finish a sweater in time for Christmas!

Yesterday was a fun day.  It began with my now infamous routine to the 12 Days of Christmas that I use every year in water aerobics.  My students put up with a lot, let me say. No photos to protect the guilty.

Also, I collected supplies for the annual tradition of Christmas cookie baking:

Two delightful sisters stopped by to make them:


Resulting in edible art:

I already have my post-Christmas knitting planned.  First up, some socks from The Knitter’s Book of Socks which I got at the Soccupy Oakland event last month. The pattern is Lady Tryamour by Sivia Harding, and the yarn is Staccata by Shi Bui – it is quite lovely!

And for my Tweet-up friend Eric, there are some fingerless mittens coming -out of this yarn:

Because that’s a what a knitter does for her friends.

As we enter this time of celebration of so many holidays and observances that talk about light, I wish to all the hope that light brings to our lives.

I seem to be on a knitting kick at the moment — small gifts made out of the Ribband pattern.  See?

The yarn is leftover stash, so the only cost is the beads and fittings.  They crank out pretty quickly!

In other news, there are some socks in need of repairs.  Not sure when that will happen, but hopefully before I really need them.

And in unrelated news, I am so glad that I can now get a flu shot at the pharmacy.  Went it to my regular pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and with 20 minutes, I also had my shot, and all the co-pays kicked in.  So convenient!

The blog is getting ignored amid all the happenings in my life.  But there have been fun things.  I asked for chocolate at my farewell party at the church and this is what I got!

My chocolate cup runneth over indeed.  The farewell celebration was so sweet and lovely that it filled my heart.  I wish the church the best as they have a talented pastor coming who will lead them well.

And now I’m onto another place, Church of the Roses.   As one friend said, “That is the best name for a church ever.”  It does ring, and the folks are lovely.  I’ve only been in the office two days, but met a bunch of folks, already have fun with the volunteers and the office staff.  I know that this is the honeymoon, but I’ll enjoy it while I can!

There has been knitting in the middle of the transition – thank goodness.  I finished a couple of Christmas presents, including a wurm hat and cowl set – it took just less than 100 grams of sport-weight yarn to make these, so it’s an economical gift.  This was leftover yarn, so even better~

And I knit one of the viral knits happening now, the Bandana Cowl – so easy, so fun!  I used Madelinetosh DK superwash merino doubled, and it is so squishy and wonderful!

After having eyed the Ribband necklace/bracelet pattern for months, I finally forked over my $5.00 and bought a bunch of beads at the bead store this week, and last night threaded enough for my first one – it’s going to be an easy–peasy knit, and great for gifts.

On the garment front, my cardigan of my own design is done, except for the closures, which I will have to ponder for a bit.  It can be worn in the meantime, which is fortunate for me.  The decision about whether it will be a real pattern has not been made, so I’m not showing the whole sweater, but here’s a tantalizing glimpse of one of the features:

Next up – more Ribbands, I think, and I’m very interested in starting to knit the Lauriel cardigan from Ysolda’s Little Red in the City book – it has some new-to-me construction techniques that will be great to learn, and it’s a fabulous sweater to boot!