Winter waltzes

Sorry, gang, for being rather quiet and boring the past couple of weeks. I've been as busy as one of Santa's elves with a lot of the holiday bustling. I've been taking photos along the way, but they just haven't made it into the computer until just now.

Above is a photo of one of the many batches of gingerbread men I've been making. They are scrumptious! I plan on hanging with a friend or two tonight to make gingerbread houses!

I'll just jump into the knitting right away, since these are just WIPs, and not really worth the suspense. These two knits are both KUAS originals that I've started and worked on here and there. The purple knit is a baby cardi that is a little similar to EZ's "February Lady," but has a different, and more wavy lace pattern. The blue heathered project (not really visible in the photo) is a hat pattern that has a different construction than the hat patterns that I'm sick of used to. I knit the cabled band first, and then picked up the stitches around the rim before continuing with another cable pattern.

A little ironic: once I did all the cable work, and picked up stitches (twice, since I ripped it out the first time to do things differently), I realized that the cable pattern could probably have been done vertically, and still look the same. To stop laughing myself silly, I told myself that I wouldn't have known how many stitches to cast-on to fit my head perfectly (who's swatches really work out in the end?), and this way was better because I'll just end up doing another cable pattern that can't be done vertically for some other hat...and this is my guinea pig project. Fair enough.

On another note, I was excited when the first snowfall happened. There is something magical about that first fall...an electric spark of awe and hope for that white Christmas that you remembered as a kid. Or it might just be me...one who is a little into the sensory around this time of year. Cold crunchy snow. A warm fireplace cracking and popping. Aromatic pine needles burning. Cookies of all sorts baking. The soft yet brilliant glow of the lights on the Christmas tree. Holiday-inspired coffees of peppermint, eggnog and gingerbread...

Speaking of winterly things. Joe and I rode the train to Chicago and enjoyed a Saturday in the city, shopping and eating at a pub. We enjoyed all of the lights littering the city trees, and checked out Macy's displays. Let me tell you, that store is a little intimidating, what with its 8 or 9 floors...

Macy's had a magnificent Christmas display. I can't even imagine how much it cost, but things where hanging every which way from the ceiling.

And the most current news: I celebrated my 24th birthday on the 12th. We had a great time going to see the Nutcracker and eating out at Jimmy's Charhouse and drinking up at Chilies. I'm enjoying my birthday gift, the new Wii Mario game (awesome!! I love mario, and I'm stoked that they remade the game while trying to keep the wonderful elements of the first couple of marios). Last night, I cooked a yummy dinner, a Shepherd's Pie that I tried to replicated from the pub in Chicago (Elephant & Castle...or was is Castle & Elephant? I forgot).

Let me leave you with a wonderful photo from one of the winterly Sunsets from a week ago: