It's December What? (weekend wind-up)

It's a bit late to be posting a Weekend Wind-up, but here I am anyway.

Today was the last day to ship to/from a Fleet Post Office and be sure that your package will arrive in time for Christmas.

Momma, I am sorry, I did not get yours out in time.

But I did manage to get all the hand-knit goodies for my 6(!) nieces & nephews in the post today.
I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I don't think any of them read this blog, so here's a little peek anyway:

I hope that 1) these fit and 2) they are liked. I will even be happy with one of the two.
Oh, and those pretty hats in the middle? Both of those came from Pacific Knits, which means that this particular book can be marked as "Complete" in my little project.
(What project? The one I decided to take on a few months ago, described in this post. I'm rather terrible about updating, though - really need to work on that!)

Of course...I might have totally added a few more patterns since then. The count is up to 1091. More to come on that.

I hope you are having a lovely holiday season!

Merry Christmas!

It's getting a bit late on Christmas Eve here, in a few more hours we will find out if Santa visits Japan.
Which has me wondering, since houses here have no chimneys, how does he manage to get in? Through the shoji doors?

The best things...

...come in small packages.

In this case three flat-rate priority mail boxes from Michigan that arrived today.
The best part of what was stuffed into these?

Well, it wasn't all the smaller boxes wrapped in Christmas-y paper.
And it wasn't these, either:

(Although that Sweet Cajun trail mix is like ambrosia to us...)

And it wasn't even the absolutely magical Chocolate Revel Bars that Mom made:

Nope, the absolute, amazing, beautiful things that arrived were these:

Yep. A couple of wooden ornaments from the early '80s. That teddy bear has hung on my parents' tree since 1983. It was a gift from Mrs. Carnahan in Edina, MN, when I was 3 years old. Since we left Minnesota when I was 5, I only have hazy memories of her...mostly playing with toys, those little plastic monkeys that you could chain together by hooking an arm over a tail, and see how long you could get the chain before it either reached the floor, or you knocked some of the monkeys and they all fell. But that teddy bear ornament was always mine to hang on the tree, and I'm pretty sure as the years went on it was placed higher and higher as I grew taller.
The cardinal I'm a bit less certain of, but I do know that for me, cardinals are associated with my grandparents' house in winter. There was always snow, every Christmas (and we drove there, every Christmas, for almost two decades), and there were always birds at the birdfeeders. My grandmother's napkin rings were painted wooden birds. There were paintings of birds, books about birds, birds done in needlepoint all around the house. (There were lots of flowers, too, but I like to associate those with summer.) Now I have a little red bird nested in my tree.
Since we can't be with our family this year, having a piece of the family here is wonderful.
Thanks, Mom & Dad, you two are awesome. I love you.

Secret Santa Origami Book

Here's the book:

Here's the inspiration:

Here's how I made it:

I started with a modified Swagged Square: there are extra post stitches in rounds 4 and 6. I used an I hook instead of an H for this, which was just enough to match the square size to the origami paper size.
Once the square was completed, I used half-double crochet across one side of the square, turned, and used hdc across until I could fold the panel to make a book cover:

You will probably notice I changed colors a few times. In this case, the color changes went:
Red- 5 rows
Green- 2 rows
Red- 3 rows
Green- 4 rows
Red- 3 rows
Green- 2 rows
Red- 11 rows

The next step was to fold the end over and make it stay. I used the green yarn and single crochet for this:

This wound up being a single crochet border around the entire book.

Once it was complete, it was wrapped & given to my Secret Santa at the office holiday party, who loved the origami paper. Not so sure about the crochet cover, but this was just to keep the paper from going all over.


 *A word about the color: That really is red and green, not red and yellow. The green and my camera did not get along, which is too bad.

A Very Productive Saturday

Wow! This is one of the first Saturdays I haven't been called in to work. I managed to get a lot done around the house, too!

For starters, I finally finished my "Delight" afghan. I found the pattern in a Leisure Arts booklet called "Beloved Afghans." You can find it on Amazon here; I bought my copy at a Michael's craft store in Texoma.
Anyway, here is what the final product looks like:

And this photo makes it look softer, I think:

I started this project back in October, pretty much the same day I received the yarn. The sample in the book used Lion Brand Homespun, which I have worked with before (remember my "I Am Loved" filet afghan?), but I'm not all that thrilled with the way Homespun ends tends to fray. With all this fringe, I wanted something different. So, I used Bernat Softee Chunky in Faded Denim and New Denim Heather.
The pattern goes pretty quick at first, and after a few repeats it would make a good scarf:

But then, I got to a point where Tim & I would be watching TV and I'd have this project in my lap, and I'd reach the end of a row and need to turn it...and the cats would choose that exact moment to jump into my lap. It's been getting pretty cold here, so 3 out of 4 times this happened, I'd just leave it. Hence it took almost two full months to finish.
Of course, finishing the rows are one thing. Then, there's the fringe. If I'd simply finished off the final row and let it be, it would have looked a bit scraggly:

 So I had to add a bit of extra fringe. Here's what it looked like after I added the dark blue:

And finally, when the light blue was complete:

Looks much nicer, I think.



Once I finished the afghan, I decided it was finally time to start decorating for Christmas. As in, more than a wreath on the front door. As in, put the tree up!
We have an artificial tree. Our decision to get an artificial tree was largely influenced by availability; Japan doesn't have Christmas Tree lots like you see stateside. The Navy Exchange sells live trees during Thanksgiving weekend, but to get a decent tree instead of a "Charlie Brown", we would have needed to be at the store first thing on Black Friday...and then we would need to figure out exactly how to get it home in our little Cube car.
There are some things to like about artificial trees: they don't pose as great a fire hazard, they stay green forever, and you don't have to buy a new one each year (and later dispose of it).
That being said, there are some downsides:
1. You have to store the darn things. We actually bought our tree two weeks ago, and the box was standing in our living/dining room until today. In January, when it comes down, Tim gets to wrestle the whole thing down to the storage shed.
2. You have to assemble them. Granted, this is much easier nowadays, with the trees being three pieces plus the stand. I remember my parents' first artificial tree had separate branches that needed to be attached individually to the trunk. After Dad put the three-part trunk together, we had to sort the branches by length and attach each one.
3. They don't look so pretty right out of the box:

See what I mean? All those branches had to be straightened & then spread. It took me a while.

It's up, though, and it has lights, and 17 ornaments. Yep. Just 17. We have 8 red balls, 8 gold balls, and one silver bell. There are also a dozen candy canes, but those will disappear over the next month.
Actually, I'm surprised I haven't tried to crochet any ornaments yet. Maybe I should get on that?