Hello Winter

I haven't turned my computer on for days... I enjoyed it so much, I think I need to unplug more often. Which almost makes me laugh given how low my life scores on the wired scale, if there is any such thing. Thinking about this reminds me of a conversation snippet from years ago. Long ago enough that pay phones were still to be found in the wild. I can't remember what prompted me to say that I don't have a television - probably an inquiry about whether or not I watched such and such a program. The person with whom I was talking was so shocked at the prospect of being TV-less, that he blurted out, "But what do you do?" To which my response was an equally shocked, "you meant to tell me that the only thing you do when not working is watch TV?" In retrospect, I think we were both equally sad for the others' paltry leisure time pursuits.

This was the kitchen window view 10 days ago. Love the yellow/grey combo.

This is the view today. No more yellow.

And looking a little lower. SNOW!

The weather has us parked in front of the wood stove where it is oh so cozy. I sit curled in the couch - trust me, this couch is definitely not sat upon, it swallows one whole, one sits in it not on it - making ornaments.

In addition to making more twigs and twine stars, I tried my hand at this modular, spherical ornament. So far, I have only two wonky circles of the 20 required. The circles aren't supposed to be wonky. Apparently, I cannot sew in a circle. So I abandoned this, for now, in favor of acorns. 

The acorn pattern I followed can be found here, a free download from Carmen Rigby on Ravelry. I used 3-ply jute twine with #9 needles. As much as I despise (because of my own awkwardness) double-pointed needles, I could just manage the small number of stitches the acorn requires. BUT. I am very excited to have learned about the magic loop from a fantastic fiber artist here in town. Magic loop is a method to knit small items in the round on super long circular needles instead of double points. I can't wait to try this! Do you use this method? What do you think?

And one final ornament. A tree of sorts constructed with the triangular off-cuts from my card wallets. I knew those little, double-sided triangles could be used for something. Now that I've found one such something, I feel slightly less like a hoarder.