moonfrog –

Thanks for all the sweet comments about My Herringbone Hat! I do hope some of you will be able to use the pattern. Let me know if it works for you!

I finished my project for the Knit the Classics ornament swap in spite of all the comings and goings of the season. I’ve been wanting to do something like an advent calendar for a long time, and came up with this variation on the theme: 12 mittens for the twelve days of Christmas. Each one holds a small gift to be opened in the days leading up to Christmas Day.

Now, this is not true to the origins of 12 days of Christmas tradition, which were actually the 12 days after Christmas, when the wise men were traveling to Bethlehem. The link above also tells of urban myths associated with the Twelve Days of Christmas song and some humor connected to it. For me, the fun of having a tiny gift for several days as Christmas approaches was the incentive for the project. Gathering all the little goodies to fill the mittens gave me a good dose of Christmas spirit. These will be tucked in with some other fun things and shipped off in time to start the countdown.
I’ve also been working on the Karlchen top-down hat pattern from SmallKnits.com, but that is a total wash! After the increases, I put it on a 16-inch circular and knit it in snatches of time when the intended recipient was out of the house. I had the strange feeling I should put it on a longer cable to check the size. I ignored that impulse, much to my dismay. Karlchen is HUGE! It’s even baggy on DH’s ginormous noggin’. I will try this pattern later and figure out where I went wrong. So it goes.

Our lives are full of holiday gatherings and preparations right now, as are many of your’s. Sunday was a motorcycle Toy Run, riding from one town to another bearing gifts for children in need. Tuesday we went to a madrigal choir dinner. What a hoot! The singers were all dressed in renaissance clothing and were quite a raucous bunch. We toasted with wassail, a spiced punch, while shouting Huzzah! There were strange rules of conduct, since the choir members were noblemen and we were but peasants with no manners. The funniest rule was that the men at the table were given the salt shakers, to be shared only for the price of a kiss. You can imagine how this honor pleased the gentlemen at the table!

One last thing before I sign off today… My package arrived from the Townsend Sock Kal’s Hot Socks Swap. Vickie sent me all the makings of some fine socks. The Sockotta is one I haven’t used, so I’m looking forward to seeing how that knits. The colors of the Cervinia are awesome! She sent some cool patterns from a calendar, lotion in melon-cucumber – one of my favorites, a cute sock blocker key chain kit, and lots of flavored cocoa. Yum!

She made me a frog cloth, too, which is above and beyond! It has been happily washing dishes for several days now.

I’m a bit of a lurker on the Townsend group, but it is a very friendly bunch of knitters and there are great patterns shared there. I just can’t keep up since I’m such a slow sock knitter, but I enjoyed this swap. There are plans for a tote bag swap and an unloved sock yarn swap in January.