Another Secret Socks Bites the Dust!

It was the eleventh hour, literally, when I secured the yarn ends of the Emperor's new socks and put them in his Christmas stocking.  I still haven't photographed them for my "records" but will include a shot here when I do.

I love this time, between Christmas and New Year's Day.  It's like the whole world is quietly waiting for the next phase of the seasons to begin.  True, the solstice was last week and this is about the time that, if we were still depending on the sun's light to tell time, we'd notice that the days have begun to get longer.  Even as removed from nature that modern people are now, I think we all feel the lengthening days already.  I like that.

This year I made some progress on a little project I've been thinking about for a while -- my Rudolph quilt.  Three or four years ago, I bought a fabric panel for a child's soft book featuring the characters from the old 1960s cartoon, and then thought, "what the heck were you thinking?"  I guess I can't resist anything with Rudolph on it... and then I noticed that each of the book pages were squares.  Hey, this could be a lap quilt!  In the intervening years, I've collected some Christmas fabrics to make it up, and this year, I put the quilt top together.  Last spring I bought a large self-healing quilt cutting mat to use with a rotary cutter, and a nice clear quilting ruler -- and these new tools made the job quick, easy and reasonably precise.  I would have finished it altogether, but discovered that the backing fabric I had selected was not quite wide enough after all -- and made this discovery just the day before the Emperor and I were supposed to leave for Sis's house.  Oh well, perhaps I'll finish it by New Year's Day, or soon after, and have it for next year.  One thing I'll say, though, is that this quilt is seriously cute.

Other projects underway include that "neck down swing cardi" being made from the New Lanark Donegal silk tweed, and a thickly cabled cardigan for the Emperor out of Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool.  Now, that's a great yarn.  It retains some of its original lanolin, so it's easy on the hands, and doesn't fuzz out if you have to fiddle with it or frog it.  It comes in a bunch of natural colors, but the natural white dyes beautifully if you wash the lanolin out of it first.  The skeins are huge (more than 450 yards) so they're a fantastic value.  In case you were wondering, I'm not connected with Lion Brand and indeed, Fisherman's Wool is the only of that brand that I'll willingly use now.

The job search continues -- it's been going on for over three years.  This year has been much better than before, and I have high hopes of landing The Perfect Job before the spring is over.  While I'm waiting, there are plenty of things to knit!