sunday evening post

Finally! Two pairs of socks are done. Only 3 more to go before Christmas. Or thereabouts. It did turn out that with both socks from the larger pair the variagations lined up in a fairly regular chevron pattern. Didn't look for anything special in the yarn when I started each one off, so it must have been the difference between making 48 stitches around vs 44 stitches. The next pair I make will be with a similar variagated yarn, but will be even larger, so we'll see how that works out.

And then at work the other night I had time to finish one more bookmark. It might be a bad thing to post about stitching at work, but really I'm there on call, so if the babies behave, I have time to stitch. I kinda like this bookmark. Instead of using perle cotton to make the kloster blocks, I used a fine alpaca wool. It's really soft, and I like the contrast between the wool, the silk thread I used for the rest of the stitching, and the linen I worked it on. I only have one more bookmark to work, and then I'll have a dozen for the Advent Fair. I started the last one this evening at a birthday party. The party was for a good friend's daughter, and since this friend is the one who's coordinating my participation in the Advent Fair anyway, it seemed appropriate to work on the bookmark at her house. And I thought if I was stitching I wouldn't eat as much. Yah, right. But I got a fair amount of work done on the bookmark, and the Advent Fair's not until next weekend, so I'm in good shape. And then I can go back to crocheting socks.

I have to say that I'm a lot more relaxed about The Coming Of Christmas than I've been the last couple of years. Last year I remember approaching Advent with an almost overwhelming feeling of dread. I just had no idea how I was going to get everything done. Well, this year I have no more time and even less money, but I'm pretty sure it'll all work out. I've been thinking a lot about what's important to me at Christmas, and it's really 3 main things. I want to spend good time with my husband and children, spend good time with friends, and make good music. Not necessarily in that order. ;)

Toward that end, I can say that this weekend has covered all those bases. Laughed a lot with friends at the party tonight, had a date with the Dear Husband last night, have hugged the kids at least once every day, and made some good music at Mass last night. The Women's Chant Choir and I did the Verbum Supernum Prodiens hymn that I posted about a couple weeks ago, and if I do say so myself, it rocked. Hard. If it's possible for a 1000 year old Gregorian hymn to rock, it did. So Advent's gotten off to a good start, and I'm almost done with the bookmarks, and the socks look do-able, and I'm in an ok place.