OH CHRISTMAS TREE OH CHRISTMAS TREE

A beautiful Christmas Eve Day here in NE FL.  The sun is shining brightly and it is cool and crisp.

I almost always work on Christmas Eve so that others who have children can be off.  Jody and I will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my folks.  We always go out to dinner on Christmas Eve - that has been a tradition in our family for over a decade now.  We go to a great seafood place in a small town near Gainesville - not too far from my folks place.  Then we ride thru the little towns on the way home looking at christmas lights and listening to Kenny G CD's - AHHHH - the holiday music - that is what I miss most when Christmas is over.

Here is a shot of the beautiful Christmas tree I look at every day at work.  I would say it is about 9 ft tall and sure has been fragrant.  We also have live garlands up the stairway and over the entry way.  My boss does most of the decorating every year for Christmas and we also have beautiful red poinsettias filling the foyer.

Speaking of poinsettias - here is a shot of my meager effort in the stitching dept.  I love this BRD - Poinsettias and Pines - I changed the fabric to Sugar and Spice glittery linen from Australia and I love it however I had a dilemma when I started stitching the snowflakes - EEEECKKKK - they disappeared and did not show up at all - I changed the silk out to a pale silvery gray which barely shows up - Oh well - fortunately there are not that many of these snowflakes on this piece

The other thing I have been focusing on this past week is these fingerless mitts for Jody.  I finished the first one last night - I will go ahead and give him the one for Christmas and it will be a hoot - he will think it is amusing that he only got one mitt - sorta like the hat I made him 2 years ago that had a hole in the crown because I needed the extra yarn to finish a hat for my dad.

 I love how it came out and for those knitters out there - the pattern is Dashing which was printed in Knitty.com but you can find it on Ravelry also. It is the male version of Fetching which was also a very popular Knitty mitt pattern - I plan to make a pair for me in the new year.

  I am using some stashed Malabrigo Worsted weight yarn in Marron - which is a very odd color - looks brown until you put it next to brown - it has a rusty look but no orange - also maroonish - anyway a pretty semi solid color.  I will get on the 2nd mitt over the holiday weekend and should have it done by NYD I hope.

the close up shows the cable patterning and the color a little better.  It looks pinky but is not pink at all.

I did lots of blog reading yesterday and see that many of you are doing the Crazy Challenge - maybe that's not the official name but that is what sticks in my head.  I wish you all luck and lots of fun but I could not handle anything like that.  I also don't make goals or resolutions - just a personal thing - I don't like looking back on the previous year and being reminded of everything I did not do or accomplish - rather to focus on what I did accomplish (if anything notable LOL) 

One thing I am rather disappointed about is that I did not finish my big Antique Blue Basket rug.  Early last year - that is something I thought for sure I would do.  As a matter of fact - I have NO rug finishes for 2010 and that does not make me happy.  My Merrie Halloween is so close to being finished - not in a week but I could still finish her for the January exhibit if I really hooked a lot in the next few weeks.  I'm not going to stress out about it but I am wishing I had done more hooking in 2010.

Just wanted to pop in with a last minute Christmas wish for all my friends in blog land - Wishing you peace and all the things your heart desires for a memorable holiday.

Merry Christmas to all ~ ~ ~

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