It’s December!

On the first of the month, G walked in after work with a sheepish smile.  “Look what I got,” he said, and showed me the lovely new tree stand he picked up while at the hardware store on business.  “That’s lovely,” I said.  It’s much nicer than the inexpensive, garishly red-bowled Canadian Tire version we had last year – it’s cast iron, I believe, with a pretty design and a much smaller footprint.  “And…there’s something else…” it turns out he had got a tree as well!  For me, this is just too wild.  In my house, we always got the tree in the last week of school and decorated it Friday or Saturday.  First week of December?  How is that tree supposed to last until Epiphany?!?  But here it is, and it’s a beautiful Noble Fir, even if it is a hair under 4′ tall.  Anyway, all week I have been promising to throw some lights on it and failing – I’ve been madly working on my shawl and I finally “finished” it in time to wear it out to a choral Christmas concert, just as I hoped.  Today it’s totally going to happen.  I swear.

I’ve got all kinds of holiday knitting going on too.  For starters, I had some Christmassy dishcloth cotton, and I decided what we really need this year is two star coasters and a star hot mat for the teapot.  I evaluated several star patterns, but in the end I felt that the Starghan pattern (which I eventually want to make a blanket from) had the best shape.  It combines increases and decreases to enhance the star shape in a manner most pleasing, as you can see in this dimly-lit photo:

I also couldn’t resist the new Tiny Santa pattern from MochiMochi Land (incidentally, the polls are open until midnight EST tomorrow on their photo contest, or drop by the site on Monday to see which of the awesome entries is the big winner).  I made one tiny Santa and one giant tiny Santa.  They’re pals.  And they love chocolate:

Unfortunately, you’re going to have to wait for more pictures of the shawl, as it’s very difficult to photograph myself wearing it.  Well, unless I were to drape it over something…but after our wacky November snow, it’s turned into a very normal Victoria winter this month: everything just looks sort of tired and damp and there’s nothing around that I want to drape my beautiful Christmas Lights shawl over.  If nothing else, I will get a photo at my mother-in-law’s tree decorating party.  It’s such a beautiful shawl that it deserves an excellent photo, not just a mediocre “look it’s a muddy fence with pretties on it” snapshot.

In other news, I’ve been working on this year’s Christmas mix CD.  I’ve called it “Raduisya!” (rejoice) and it’s a largely Slavic collection of Christmas & New Year’s songs.  There was just one rough transition I was trying to smooth out, and I thought perhaps a rendition of one of my favourite carols, Infant Holy, Infant Lowly, in the original Polish, would be ideal.  In the process of finding the version I eventually put on the CD, I came across the song as performed by “Urszula,” who appears to be a lauded jazz performer from Poland.  It’s cheesy.  It’s awesome.  It sounds bizarrely reminiscent of Taiwanese pop.  It was so…interesting that I had to share – via my first ever youtube foray!  But…just so as you know, I won’t be offended if you open it in a separate tab so you can listen without watching the “OMG I JUST DISCOVERED iMovie” photo montage.  Although seriously, guys, OMG I just discovered iMovie!

Anyway, for your listening pleasure:

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I have a confession…

I love Christmas.  It’s not even the middle of November yet, and I’m already excited!  Of course, if you’re a crafter you’re inherently likely to get a head start on the festive season in one way or another…but seriously, folks, I got out some of my non-English and Middle-English Christmas music already this week!  I’ve been listening to Kolyadki from Russia and the Ukraine, Middle-English paeans to the virgin Mary, basically anything that doesn’t mention Santa and was written down before the 19th century I feel is fair game for November.  Of course the fact that my husband has been home sick for a couple of days has put a bit of a damper on my musical joy, sigh…  He’s not complaining about the pumpkin spice tea we’re drinking, though!  I plan on slipping some allspice in the coffee tomorrow too…cold weather demands more spices!

My big, attention-requiring project for a month or so now has been my Christmas Lights Shawl (on Ravelry).  I’m creeping up on the end now – two more pattern repeats and I’ll be ready to start the edge chart.  I added beads to look like, well, I’m sure you can guess what.  I have been doing columns of red and green that will appear to alternate along the wingspan of the shawl, sandwiched between rivulets of gold.  It will look much better when it’s all blocked out, but here’s a sneak peek, hung up against the dress I bought for winter party-going.  Which needs a bit of alteration, if I can ever get the damned sewing machine going.  Story of my life these days.

But as excited as I am about this shawl for its own sake, I have to admit I’m even more excited about finishing it because it means I can devote more time to decor!  Another Ravelry member recently linked to this Martha Stewart craft she tried a while ago: snowballs made from string, glue, and glitter.  I’m pretty sure I will have a lot of beads leftover from this shawl and I’m thinking of doing the same craft, but with bead garlands instead of glittery string!  And there are a bunch of little things I’m itching to make from the Jean Greenhowe Christmas Craft Special that Santa brought last year.  We had our first Christmas tree together (also my first since moving out) and decorated it with beautiful matching sets of ornaments; this year is the time to start adding unique, handcrafted ones (and breaking the ones we have) so that years from now we’ll have a delightfully eclectic mix, as one truly ought, no two ornaments exactly alike!

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