Jack's Lament - The nightmare before Christmas

Merry Christmas to All

Yummy, yummy cashmere

At Stitches East this year, I signed up for the block of the month club for the Great American Afghan. The yarn is an 8ply cashmere from Hunt Valley. It's the softest, most luxurious yarn I've ever worked with. It's taking me a while to knit up my first square, because I keep squeezing it and rubbing it on my face, arms...well, let me just stop there.

The first block is Barbara Selesnick's:

Reading the patterns in this book is a bit of a challenge, but once figured out, this block is knitting up very prettily.

My SigO, his daughter and I went to Sushi Taro this weekend. The SigO's daughter has a small fascination with the japanese culture and this is about as authentic japanese food as I can find in DC. We didn't get to sit on the floor-that's only a small section of the restaurant-but we did have some interesting food. We had BBQ Eel, sushi, sashimi, steamed dumplings, kabobs and a very different dish with tuna and grated yam which made the tuna very slippery - like trying to go fishing with chopsticks.

Before dinner, we went to go see the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Don't bother. Someone please explain to me why Hollywood needs to take a perfectly good movie and add as many explosions as they can fit in in a two hour movie? Of course, it was doomed the minute they signed Keanu Reeves, wooden boy, to play Klaatu.

Finally, Sunday, the SigO and I went and rode around Burke Lake. He just bought himself a new mountain bike and we really had a lot of fun - even if my chain kept falling off. When we took it to be repaired the guy asked if I was a radical rider, since the chain wheel was bent and the rear derailer was all catty-whompus. I told him, no, I really only rode Dual Track, easy trails - but hey, that doesn't mean I don't crash - a lot!

So, another good weekend. Over too soon, as usual.

Wine Tasting, Hiking, Knitting - In that order

As wine club members of Rappahannock Cellars winery, we got to spend Saturday afternoon in the cellars of the winery eating really great soup paired with really nice wine.There were three soup courses (Champagne Brie, Butternut Squash and Apple Bisque, and Lentils and Sausage) each paired with their own wine (Seyval Blanc, Viogner, Big World Red) and their own bread. The best part was that the bread was served by the owner's daughters - the youngest of which was four. She had a sister helping her who I suspect was no older than eight, but when we asked her how old her sister was, she rolled her eyes and with a look of great long suffering said "Four...sigh". So funny. As though at the ripe old age of eight, she had seen it all and the responsibility of educating her, oh so naive, sister was just too heavy a burden to bear! The meal was topped off with Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies paired with Norton Port. Again served by the four year old. Too cute.

After the winery, we went and bought our Christmas tree and brought it home to decorate. Lovely huh? Just barely squeezed it into the space we had for it. The top branch is touching the ceiling. Please don't look at it too hard - you may tip it over. I apparently underestimated the amount of humidity in my basement storage area and that humidity has definitely affected the christmas tree stand, such that we had problems getting the clamps to completely screw in and clamp down the tree trunk. So if you breathe on it too heavily, it begins to tilt ever so slightly. Try adjusting it one way or another and it's a Christmas Tree Yard sale. Ah, but isn't it lovely?!

Sunday, we went for a hike in Prince William forest...again. I love that park. So close, yet so remote. Got a picture of my SigO with hat head:

and he trekked over the river and through the woods to get the perfect angle of the trees, the sky, and the waterfall for me in this picture:

I got to take one of my favorite shots.

I have this same basic picture from a few parks. I just love the leaves lying at the bottom of the river and the reflections playing out on the water. Such a tranquil picture - to me. Do you think it's tranquil to trees, or is this the equivalent of us seeing severed body parts lying at the bottom of a river? Wow...where did that come from? OK, the dark side of me is firmly tucked away again.

I did get some knitting done this weekend as well. I finished the front and back of my latest sweater and used a friend's suggestion to bind the shoulders off together instead of having to seam them up. I need to ask her if I was supposed to bind them off on the inside of the top though, instead of the outside. Probably. Not surprisingly, to those that know me, I'm fine with it the way it is.

I started on the sleeves but had a minor set back:I'll have to name this sweater "Destroyer of Needles" since this is the second set to go astray. The first set had one just walk off, never to return. This set, as you can see broke as a result of me trying to get the warp out of the needle - it was really making me crazy and I was trying to bend it back - like that was really going to work.

I have finally started seaming up the sideways striped sweater, but I've ripped out more than I've sewn (which doesn't bother me as much as you'd think. My sister-in-law prepared me for that eventuality a long time ago when she taught me how to cross stitch. I'll never forget her words of wisdom: "Just remember, you rip what you sew". And I have. A Lot.) So far I have one shoulder seam sewn and I'm trying several different variations on the collar. At first I seamed it the normal way, but then as soon as it laid down, I saw the seam would be on the wrong side. So I ripped it and tried a single crochet seam with a very small yarn (much smaller than the yarn used in the sweater) and I hate that. So I need to rip that and try again with the yarn used in the sweater. So, some trial and error going on there, but it will get done eventually.

In the meantime, there's always more knitting to be done...