A Baby Vest and A Book

I have finished two crocheted cowls recently and decided I ought to pick up one of the many UFO's lying around.  (That's unfinished objects, btw)  I began the Colin Vest last year (maybe two years ago????) when I was beginning to try to hone my knitting skills.  I began the newborn size because only one skein of this beautiful yarn was mailed to me... I wanted to be sure I had enough so I went with the smallest size.

Eventually, I set it aside because it was just too depressing- working on a newborn thing for no reason at all.

But I am determined to cut down on those unfinished bits lying about so I picked it back up and have found that the knitting is not as tedious for my fingers as it had been when I last set it down.  A happy surprise!  I don't know what I will do with it when it is done.  Maybe frame it and hang it on the wall as my first knitted garment item?  I love the yarn so much.  The colors remind me of a foggy day at the beach, when the ocean looks dark and looming and the mist lifts from the sea.  I really could hang it on the wall and enjoy it.  More likely, it will find a newborn body somewhere to keep warm and snug.

I am reading Someday You'll Write, which I discovered in bed last night as I opened the first page, was written for a 12 year old girl who dreamed of becoming a writer.  So it is a childrens' book.  Nevertheless, I was captivated and entranced as I read on and found myself transfixed and somewhere between the page I began and the last paragraph that I read, I realized I had become a girl again... just needing a kind person to take me by the hand and do a bit of gentle coaxing, with some sound advice mixed in, so that a girl may believe her dreams are possible.



In those little bits of time throughout the day when I can't read but I can flip, I have piles of crafty books laid here, there and everywhere...hoping for some homemade gift inspiration.

43 more days until Christmas and my sewing machine is no more.

It has been no more for quite some time.  I have been working on older, used sewing machines for so long (and paying for repairs incessantly) that I decided I would buy a brand new one the next time the sewing machine broke.  And then break it did and I didn't have the money at the time so I never did. And now, quite suddenly, it is prime christmas-making time and I have no sewing machine!

Of course, a sewing machine would be too kind to wait until AFTER the Christmas gift making to heave its' last sigh....but that would be too easy and too perfect, wouldn't it?  So any handmade gifts this year will NOT be of the sewn variety.

And I feel quite handicapped about it.  Now, all of a sudden, all my ideas are sewn.  Ironic.

What are you up to?  Do you intend to make any Christmas gifts this year?  Have you begun to think about Christmas gifting yet?  Read any good books lately?  Come on- let's chat!