There's No Place Like Home

I love to knit. I love to read. I love to watch movies. I love to drink coffee. And I especially love to do them all at the same time. The next 3 and a half months will be a 7 days a week knitting marathon for me as I finish up all the projects for the book, with my reward at the end of April being 12 days in the French countryside with my darling, patient, and in my opinion, extremely-lucky-to-be-married-to-me husband. But since I am incapable of doing just one thing at a time, I have prepared for this knitting marathon by joining Netflix and buying a 24 book plan at audible.com for audio books.

I'm working on the Williamsburg "Rag" Rug, which is easy knitting that allows me to actually read while I knit. I'm on the latest volume of Diana Gabaldon's wonderful Outlander series of books. & volumes so far and I think the smallest one is still more than 700 pages. I'm down to the last 200 pages and am making quite a bit of progress on both the book and the rug. The rug project will definitely outlast the book, so I'll switch to movies to help pass the time while knitting this 6 foot wide rug. Hence, Netflix.

I have a pretty good collection of DVD's and Blue Rays, but mindless knitting gives me the opportunity to see new movies or movies new to me. Leaving the house to actually rent movies means I waste time dressing and driving, cutting into my knitting time. So I'll be streaming movies on my laptop while I work away on this rug.

The rug project is perfect for reading or watching movies while knitting, requiring no shaping or row counting, but the rest of my projects for the book require a bit more attention. I can't knit from a chart in Fair Isle or Intarsia while reading, and even have trouble "watching" rather than just "listening" to a movie as I am counting in my head and checking my chart. So I can "listen" to a movie that I've seen 20 times. Of course the problem with that is that I've already seen the movie 20 times. So I've decided that charted or shaped knitting will be best accompanied by audiobooks. I did a little research online and settled on audible.com and started linig up my books. My criteria is first and foremost length -- the longer the better! An 8 hour audiobook is good for one day of knitting. So 24 hours and up is the standard. Otherwise, I'm gonna need to sell my stash on ebay just to pay for my audiobooks.

Classics, historical fiction, romance -- doesn't matter as long as it's l-o-n-g. Well, I guess it does matter since I'm passing on the longest piece of fiction, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand which logs in at over 60 hours. I'm also passing on the James Clavell books as I've already read them. Oh, and the John Irving books. My son, a writer himself, loves John Irving. Me, not so much. So first up is the Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George, a huge piece of historical fiction, that clocks in at a whopping 41 hours and 20 minutes.

So I'm all set. Movies to stream , audio books to download, at least a year's worth of coffee pods, and buckets and buckets of yarn. No need to leave home until April. Back to work....

Third Time's the Charm!

I hate hate hate ripping out. That's the one thing about designing your own patterns. You know what you want it to look like, but as you're working, it's really trial and error. If you don't like how it's turning out, well, it's rip and re-knit. I am on my third version of my Gilded Age Placemats. This table set was inspired by the glittering gold and silver services of the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina.

The first version was done in double-knitting, in gold and silver, with a reversible design. Double-knitting is really time consuming as the both yarns need to move between the needles with every stitch. I was about 4000 stitches in when I thought: "No one in their right mind will make 6 of these." Rip and re-knit.

Version 2 was knit in intarsia. I was 20 rows in when I re-checked my gauge and decided that it wasn't wide enough. Bye, bye almost 1800 stitches.

Well, my mother always said "Third time's the charm" but generally she was referring to my somewhat checkered marital history. But with that adage in mind, I cast on for a third time with more stitches, having re-worked the intarsia design chart to accomodate an extra 15 stitches. I am happy to announce that I am 59 rows in (more than half way) and it is turning out just like I imagined. This project is knit in Berroco Metallic FX in silver and gold. I love mixed metals and I think the modern design (I'm only showing you a little bit here -- you have to wait for the book!) really suits it. Classic and modern all at once. I think I'm going to knit a second version as well in metallic black and silver. Maybe as a table runner.

The yarn is a gorgeous metallic ribbon, very soft and supple. The effect is molten metal. Lovely.

Now that all the craziness of getting the house ready for the holidays is over, all the gifts are finished and wrapped and shipped, it feels really good to get back to Deep South Knitting. Of course, it would feel better if there was less ripping and more knitting. Maybe next project?

85 Degrees of Holiday Spirit

If you live in a more northern climate than me (and who doesn't?), you know that rush of holiday spirit that comes with the first dusting of snow. It may only last until the first time you need to dig your car out, or you slip and fall on the ice, but the crisp air and the snowflakes definitely help to usher in the winter holidays. I went to school up north and I lived in Germany for 3 years, and I remember that rush of seeing the first flurries, knowing the holidays were just around the corner.

Not so much here in the South. To make up for the lack of season change, we have all kinds of other ways to help us get in the holiday mood. Some people string every surface of the outside of their houses in lights, mostly icicle shaped. Not me -- I'm afraid of heights, have a bad habit of falling off ladders, and I am married to the least handy guy in Florida, if not the continental U.S. Some people cover their lawns in giant blow-up Santas and snowmen that stay up with hot air being blown in from fans below. Not me -- the movement created by the blowing air kind of freaks me out. Some people turn their thermostats down to 65 to jack up the air conditioning and light a fire in their fireplace -- OK, I admit to that particular act of desperation, but only on the actual holiday. For a lot of us though, we just decorate the bejeezus out of the inside of our houses with holiday stuff. This has the extra benefit of being able to be accomplished in air-conditioned comfort. Ahhhh.

I do admit to having somehat of a fondness for Christmas. Some would call it obsession, but I suspect they're decendents of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Sure we had to have storage lofts built into the garage ceiling to hold the holiday stuff that won't fit on the floor to ceiling shelving on 2 walls of my 3 car garage, but that space was just being wasted anyway! And I collect nothing else, well, not counting my yarn stash, needles, ummmm. OK, that doesn't count since it isn't on display and doesn't need to be dusted.

So back to Christmas. I put up 11 Christmas trees every year. 10 big ones and 1 little one. And every year I think, OK, I'm finally finished and don't need another ornament or whatever. And then I spot something too adorable NOT to have it on a tree, or a store I just happen to be in puts their holiday trim stuff 60% off before Thanksgiving, and well..... All this holiday spirit takes a fair amount of time to install in the house. So I'm afraid my book (and the attendant knitting) has really gotten the short end of the stick this month. So I thought I'd share a little tour of my house so you can see why I didn't knit much for the last few weeks. Ready? Welcome to what we call the "Tour des Trees." Before you even think about judging me, this accumulation of holiday joy took over 25 years.

So welcome to Maison de la PurlQueen! From the outside, you'd never know the Chritmas-Shoppe-on-Steroids that awaits. Simple wreaths with bows on all the windows, swagged garland on the railings. No lights or figurines. I save all the craziness for the inside...

First up, my living room. The tree is all copper, brown, and dark gold with 3 or 5 ornaments to a branch and lots of texture from brown velvet poinsettias, golden dried garlands, painted twig wreaths, beaded fruit, die cut wooden curlicues and the like. This tree is my husband's favorite. My favorite changes every year, but I think it's like having 11 kids -- you love them all in their own way. But fewer stretch marks with Christmas trees.

My dining room tree is decorated in cream and gold. In case you can't tell, my theory is that if you can see any green, you need more ornaments! The giant wooden angel is new this year. I spotted it at the wonderful neighborhood garden shop where I buy my poinsettias and it needed a good home. The reindeer prancing around my chandelier are one of my favorite things, although I really love the hand-painted and formed metal nativity on the table. I love the unusual elongated shapes.

This is my kitchen. The tree is done in the colors of grapes -- soft bright grren and wine purple. There are bunches of beaded grapes on the tree, as well as lots of very sparkly ornaments. One of my favorite things this year is the fixture over the kitchen table. It's wrapped in layers of simple artificial garland, which forms the base for a couple hundred floral picks of sparkly grape leaves, red and green grape clusers and metallic feathers. Then I hung a dozen or so dangly ornaments from under the arms of the bottom layer. There's a smaller matching hanging fixture over the stove, but without the dangly ornaments. Fire hazard. Ask me how I know that....

The porch of my lovely Italian garden, visible through the French doors in my kitchen. The porch is dressed up with swags from the coach lights and lots of fresh poinsettias. Even the pots on the fountain were replanted in red and white.

My family room tree is all red and gold glitter to match my sofa. Well, the sofa isn't glittered -- just red and gold. It's topped with a full-on glitter leaf garland that really looks magical when lit at night. And on my piano, this is my Christmas gift from my husband that he bought for me on our vacation in Alaska this past September. We were going to hang it from the ceiling, but it weighs a ton and did I mention that my husband is the least handy guy in Florida?

My favorite spot in my entire house -- my French courtyard garden that is through the wall of French doors in my family room. All dressed up for the holidays. If it would just cool off already, I could leave the doors open and this becomes an outdoor room.

Master bedroom tree has a wild jungle theme (roarrrr! we knitters are a wild bunch) with tropical flowers, pineapples, parrots and monkeys. Glittered palm fronds in red, gold and green make this tree dazzling when light at night.

Our dog and cat tree in my husband's home office. All red, white and silver with dog and cat ornaments. La Maison de la PurlQueen is home to the most spoiled pets in America..

Let's head upstairs. This is part of my santa and snow globe collection at the top of the stairs and my girly tree in my home office. All pink, cream, golg and soft sage green, with Victorian dolls and jeweled ornaments.

I think this is my favorite tree this year. In my son's room (though he lives in NYC and uses this room about 5 days a year, more if the Magic are in the NBA playoffs), the tree has a lodge theme to go with the room and has 3 layers of garlands -- acorns, corrugated tin rings, and frosted red berries on twigs -- and lots of cabin-in-the-woods type ornaments.

This tree is in my studio. All red and green and covered with cardinals and bird houses, Hmmm, I see some green in this picture. I obviously need more ornaments....

Last but not least -- our "travel tree" in our home gym. With a snow theme and ornaments from our travels, each ornament is a memory of a family vacation. In this shot, you can see the nutcracker from our Christmas market trip to Germany's castle road, an Eskimo papoose from our Alaskan cruise, and a double decker bus from our trip to London a couple of years ago. So many menories make this tree very special to us.

So there's also garland on every mirror, Santas everywhere, a German Christmas Wonderland Villge, and well, more Christmas than you can shake a peppermint stick at, but you get the idea. So if you're feeling a little Grinchy this holiday season, come on over and I'll fire up the air conditioning, make some hot cocoa (peppermint schnapps optional) and we'll get you all sorted out. If I don't see you before Christmas, I wish you the happiest of holidays and a new year full of gorgeous yarn and very happy knitting!