Deadline time has arrived, and I have shipped my package to New York. What, you ask? It’s time to send hand-knit goodness to Christmas at Sea . Go see their page, I’ll wait.
It’s exciting to think that they have been putting together Christmas boxes for merchant mariners for 175 years! My great-grandmother, Delilah, taught me to knit. She said she learned to knit socks for “the war”. It turned out she was referring to the Spanish-American War. So you see, the tradition of knitting for others who serve our good has been in our family that long.
This year I didn’t do as much car travel as last, and that is a wonderful time to knit the scarfs and caps for Christmas at Sea. I shipped only two matching sets of scarf/caps, but added six big bottles of unscented hand/body lotion and six chap sticks. Oh, and there was one more “gift”. I fastened the scarf/cap sets to their Christmas card (including care instructions) with a honking big safety-pin. When you need a pin at sea, it’s worth its weight in gold!
No, we didn’t go down to the stadium. When college football is broadcast on TV my lake house has the best concessions, the most comfortable seats, the shortest bathroom lines, the best parking, and no drunk spills anything on my knitting! As you can see in the lower left corner of the picture, DH even got me the traditional football mums.
This shawl will certainly be in my book tote for Thursday’s EFM seminar. Our daily highs are still in the upper 70’s, but the over-enthusiastic air-conditioning makes it shawl weather.
By the time I could grab the camera, he was out again, alarmed for Casper. “Hang on, Casper, I’ll get that zipper open!”
We are so proud of all that she accomplished with her committee. The show earned $945! When memorial contributions for the year are added, she should make that lofty $1,000 goal. Wow!
She spent an overnight stay in the oxygen cage, then was able to come home on an even higher daily prednisone dose.
She woke up at 5:30 in her spot between our pillows and stepped over me to stretch out along my left side. I realized she was breathing rapidly, about 60 breaths/minute, and waited to see if her breathing would settle down. It didn’t. Normally she gets her morning medicines at 7 am, but I decided to go ahead and give it at 5:40.
There is the egret in the tree on the right, but do you see the second bird? I went out on the shore, and the sun came out from behind a cloud. Here, see the blue heron in the tree on the left?
That’s a lot of bird for those two little scrub trees!
and the search was on for the perfect pattern to match the yarn.
The pattern called for 10 repeats and 412 yards of yarn. This yarn, 
This pattern is intended for a tweed yarn, and the City Tweed doesn’t disappoint. Its alpaca content makes you want to keep on knitting, keep on petting the yarn. Again, I’ve bought more yarn than the pattern called for because I want a shawl to snuggle in. (What is it with these dinky shawls that look like big neckerchiefs? Instant gratification, I suppose.)
and calming down only a bit. He spent some kitty nap time in DH’s lap yesterday for the first time. Blocking my shawl was a whole ‘nother adventure, though. I might as well have been waving a kitty lazer about as threading the wires through the shawl. Archie made several frantic and successful jumps onto the blocking board before he was banished to the guest room. Once the shawl was blocked I took the entire board out to the garage to dry, and released the less-than-repentant Archie to pillage and burn once more.
The yarn is from my stash, 2 skeins of Knit Picks Swish DK in Pale Lemon. Norah’s sample is knit in olive, and looks like stylized leaves. My scarf, knit in the pale lemon, reminds me of ripe wheat. 
I am very pleased with the outcome, and eagerly await cooler, scarf-appropriate weather.
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