I hope you enjoy the pattern.  I know I enjoyed knitting the one and a half gloves I have knit from the pattern so far.  The samples were knit by Jenny, and they were knit using Noro Silk Garden Sock.

I hope you like it — I know I enjoyed knitting it, and happily I made myself one very like it too.  I will post pictures of it when I can get some taken.

And you know something? I does — for months on end — enough winter wonderland for practically everyone — enough to share with a great many people and enough that it goes on long enough there is very little chance of missing it.

I gave it away today, and Jenny can use it instead.  I will watch her productions with interest and leave you with a picture of my most successful project on the knitting machine:

I know I decided not to start a cooking blog, but I reserve the right to change my mind as I am frequently wrong.  I tell myself that this is okay as long as long as I am not too wedded to my opinions.

I have been working on a crochet pattern and my mittens over the holidays and will have some pictures soon — I am so looking forward to wearing them.

As I am not sure how good it would be for us to actually implement all the things we say we want to achieve, I hope that you all are able to implement your new year’s resolutions proportionately to how good it would actually be for you to achieve them.

The corresponding thing I will start doing (again) is knitting others’ patterns.  I am somewhat happy with where my design is, but I feel that if I want to take it to the next level I will need to start knitting others’ patterns.  I have never found classes or discussion to be effective ways for me to learn knitting (I learned almost entirely from books): the only way I have ever really learned anything is from knitting it myself.

I was inspired by this article about Tiger Woods last week.  I want to live in that pursuit of excellence, and have the courage to cut out anything that is not perfection.

I have also started cooking more and as proof — my shopping list of last week:

I almost think I should start a cooking blog — that may be taking things too far by the time I finished making anything the light would be gone and I couldn’t take good pictures of it.

I did however pull out the Christmas decorations and decorate a house plant for a tree (it’s my new Norfolk pine):

There was a  bit of a snow storm yesterday:

Yes, that is snow almost halfway up my window — it’s quite charming today, but I am a little concerned that it will stay there all winter.  We are on the second floor, so surely it will blow off or fall off on someone’s head in a big clump.  If having a bird leave, um — droppings — shall we say, on your shoulder is lucky, them a big pile of snow on your head must be too.

And please remember, when you bite into that gingerbread cookie, that symbolic human sacrifice is an important part of the tradition.

Have a wonderful celebration of light coming back into the world.

Merry Christmas!

I think I need a stop-doing strategy.  There are so many things I have spent so much time doing — there are of course the usual suspects: surfing the Internet in general and Ravelry in particular and watching TV, but there are also other things that just sap my energy and don’t fit into what I really want to accomplish.

After reading about being a professional crafter on Etsy yesterday (see post here), I realized anew that though superficially it looks lovely, and I feel a fair amount of jealousy towards people who are successful, it just isn’t for me.  I don’t want to do that even if I had the time to do it well, which I don’t — it just ends up being hokey, and I hate hokeyness.

This has led me to the decision to pull all my listings from Etsy — and it’s done.

Partly I just don’t like having to mail stuff then getting blamed when it gets stuck in customs.

I wonder what else I should stop doing.  Any suggestions? What do you want to stop doing?

If I were unemployed, I would probably try to make a go of my knitting/design career, but I can’t see myself quitting my job to do it full time any time soon — partly because I like it too.

I greatly respect those who do it, and so many people are making such beautiful things, but it really looks hard.  My hat off to all of those who do it.

Addendum: There is also discussion about this at one of my favourite blogs, Poppytalk.  See here.

I know I am a bit late, but I was out of town yesterday.

The sample was knit my Jenny of Spinning Jenny.  If you would like to see how the sample fits with different amounts of ease you can check out her wearing it here.  This was the first pattern that I worked with a sample knitter on directly, and it went so well.  It’s funny when you start doing your hobby professionally – I never thought I would outsource my knitting, but there you go.