After all the pre-Christmas knitting / and the post-holiday knitting, I was burned-out and ready for a break.  I managed to finish most of the projects I'd planned -

This shrug for one of Bill's daughters - she found a pattern we both liked, but it wasn't for the yarn we liked, so I ended up making it entirely to fit her (notice the thumb holes at the end of the sleeve?  That innovation combines the shrug with being a hand-warmer too!) and a large t-shirt quilt for Bill, which couldn't be photographed because Bill leaves it upside down on the couch, and the cat really likes the corderoy backing!  Bill's red Christmas socks...  better not to talk about those.  They're still in progress.  Sort of.

Then there was this large afghan, knitted by four people, for a raffle to benefit the library.  Being one of the four and the organizer for this enterprise, I supplied the yarn and knitted the widest part and put most of it together; then finished the edge.  Raffle tickets anyone?  We'll probably pull the winner on Valentine's Day! 


And this project, a handspun shawl I started spinning in October, didn't finish the spinning and plying until after Christmas (and after I'd actually begun the knitting).  The knitting took longer than expected.  I was trying to knit at least a couple of hours every day, and my hands hurt every night.  I was putting the finishing stitches in last Friday night, in advance of a Roc Day show, where I entered it in the competition there.  (I won). 
Meanwhile, I was also working on workshop projects I'm teaching this winter, including
 this "Ocean Waves" coaster
and the "Best Friends Sampler Coaster"


Ocean Waves will be taught at the Sunshine State Tatters Gathering, Best Friends for the Lost Art Lacers in New Jersey.  
Then there was the first Tatting Times issue for the 25th anniversary year.  That's ready to go to the printers tomorrow.  Or Friday, if it snows.
Time to relax, I thought.  I found this pattern online, and I really liked it.  It's from Georgia Seitz's site, a reprint from Needlecraft Magazine, February 1925. 


I wanted a simple sort of pattern to relax with, maybe even update a little, where it might lend itself to that.  Time, I thought, to use up even just a little of my stockpiled cordonnet, so I wound two shuttles CTM with size 50 in a soft sage green.  But my first try, the example to the left, clearly wasn't going to work.  The problem

is apparently the lock chain, which was just a hair too long.  So I started over - that's the one on the right - and that one looks like it WILL work just fine.  The difference between the two is less than 1/8 inch.  Small changes really do matter.  Stay tuned - more on this later!