Well, Happy New Year, All!  I am (as I usually am about this time each year) in descent from my voyage to Planet Christmas — ready for quiet days and long evenings.  I am loving our candles and battery tea lights and fireplace fires.  They — figuratively and literally— brighten our home and I find the juxtaposition of cheery pools of light in dim corners and and flickering flames under low lighting soothing.  More than ever before, this Winter feels like a time of waiting…and I find I am more patient and in better spirits when I embrace today and look to the blessings of the moment.  So, I Iight my candles and pick up my knitting and greet the day as best I can.

I think my Finnish grandmothers would be pleased with the amount of practical pieces in my Winter knitting this year.  A wool vest for George, winter hats for all 6 of my grandchildren, and several pairs of rather quick-to-knit short socks for myself (thick worsted weight wool — great socks to wear with my house clogs!).  I am designing a vest to layer over long-sleeved t-shirts on chilly days — Scandinavia-inspired, fitted in the bodice and loose over the hips, with long vertical stripes in KnitPicks Wonderfluff (a marvelously soft and lightweight puffy alpaca/wool blend)

I have some fun, lively knitting going too (of course!).  My grandson Owen gave me a skein of Lion Brand “Landscapes” (100% acrylic) for Christmas — in just my colors!  He had bought it with his own money and confided in me that it was “a great price for what it is” and he was delighted that it was so soft.  I love it!  I cast on this mistake-rib cowl almost immediately 🙂

And as even Winter knitting may have its spritely, wild side — Sarah and I are both knitting lace shawls with the yarns in our Hedgehog Fibres “Advent Boxes.”  It was such fun meeting up via FaceTime every day in December to reveal that day’s mini-skein of fabulously dyed yarn!  And knitting the yarns is pure delight.  Mine makes me think of butterflies.  And since it is — and will continue to be — bunched up on the needles as I knit it and add new yarns, binding it off the needles at the end will be something like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon and unfurling its vibrant wings to the sun.