packing

We're finally digging out of 18" of snow that blanketed the midwest and pretty well shut down our city for a couple of days. Schools were closed Thursday and Friday, giving all the kids in town an early start to the winter break. Once the wind died down we got a fair bit of sledding in. And shoveling. Oh, so much snow to shovel.

Tomorrow we leave to spend Christmas in Kentucky. We'll be staying with my parents, of course, where my parents-in-law will join us the first part of the week, and my brother and SIL for the later part of the week. It's a long drive, but we're excited to go.

The preparation is another story, however. I can't stand coming home to a messy house, so I have been fretting about cleaning it without doing a whole lot about it. This evening I finally picked up the clutter and vaccummed the basement while Stuart washed the dinner dishes and wrestled the kids into PJs.

Meanwhile, I spent a good part of the afternoon trying to finish up a last minute sewing project that was supposed to be part of Anya's Christmas present. Alas, it was not to be. After some massive equipment failure - nothing, I repeat, nothing is more frustrating than spending an hour trying to re-thread a serger -   and a giant mistake that I didn't catch until after I'd run it through said serger (which was finally fixed), I gave up and almost cried. Daniel wandered downstairs to see what I was up to, bless his heart, and I told him I just had to be alone, such was my frustration.

At least with knitting, when you screw up, it happens slowly. Even if you keep going in a state of utter denial and end up ripping out hours of work, it's not like you can completely ruin a project in a matter of seconds without realizing what's happening. Well, yes I suppose you could, but unlike sewing, knitting doesn't involve using scissors every few minutes.

And by the way, my Daniel has turned into a knitter, if you can believe it. He made this all by himself:


It started out as a scarf, but he decided he was ready to move along to another project before it was quite long enough, so I sewed up the ends and now he has himself a neck warmer. This project tells the story of Daniel learning to knit, and by that I mean I didn't make him correct anything or take out any mistakes. So the beginning of the project (which isn't visible in this picture) gets narrower and then wider and has some suspicious-looking loops and strangely loose stitches, but eventually it evens out into beautiful, even garter stitch that you'd hardly believe a six-year-old boy executed by himself. As soon as this was done, Daniel eagerly cast on for a hat and learned how to purl. He really does amaze me sometimes.

I have a few more projects to blog, which will hopefully happen before the year's out. Until next time, happy holidays, everyone!

Comments

gay said…
happy holidays to you and yours. so fun that daniel has become an accomplished knitter too! enjoy your time in ky!
gay said…
enjoy your trip and happy holidays to you and your family...happy knitting to you and daniel!

Popular Posts