Christmas!

Christmas was a wonderfully relaxing day. The animals let us sleep until 8:30, we got up, opened stockings and gifts, made breakfast (French toast made with Panettone -- yum!), and then crawled back into bed. (Our definition of a good day often involves being able to crawl back into bed for an hour or two in the afternoon. -- minds out of the gutter, now!) There weren't a lot of gifts to one another since this splurge shortly after we moved here:

Django

That's Django. He's a recumbent bike, made by the now-defunct Burley. I chose to go with a recumbent because of the lack of stress on my wrists (carpal tunnel is forever, even after surgery). He's fabulous, and I love him dearly. Tucson is a very bicycle-friendly city, and there are many easy routes in our area. I try to ride almost every day. M also got a bike: a pink Townie 3. She loves hers,too.

Anyhoo, spend a couple thousand on bikes and another couple thousand on furniture (at least the moving expenses were all reimbursable), and that makes for a slim Christmas.

We did, however, send gifts Maine-ward:

Moms Scarf
A scarf for my mother.

Pattern: Plain weave with a sett of 16epi
Yarn: Warp: 2/8 Shetland, lilac; Weft: WEBS 2/14 alpaca/silk hand-dyed and gifted by Gail when she was experimenting with colors
Loom: Leclerc Voyageur 15 3/4" 12-shaft

and a close-up of the fringe:
Scarf Fringe
this was my first use of my new quad fringe twister (though I only did a double fringe).

Dads Socks
Socks for my Dad, and ...

Robs Socks
Socks for my brother.

Please don't ask what the colors are, though the yarn is Regia 4-ply Strato Color which WEBS had on closeout a couple years ago.

My sister-in-law received the already-blogged Monkeys, and for the niece, well, just the bestest thing ever:

Quilt and Pillow

That's a rag quilt and matching pillow. Take seven yards of cotton flannel, cut into squares, sew into strips, sew strips into a blankie, then spend two painful evenings snipping the heck out of the thing before washing and drying (guess I love my niece more than I love my new washer and dryer). Wendy gave me the idea; she even has a tutorial (pdf file). I made my squares 8" instead of 7" so the quilt would actually be almost blanket-size for a toddler bed, and it fits the bed perfectly, as you can see:

Quilt on Bed

E loves it, as does her mother (ETA: J now wants all the leftover fabric and any more I can pick up at the store to do other decorating in the room). It seems that, unbeknownst to us, they had just moved E into her toddler bed and didn't have a blanket or quilt that fit it. I love it when things just work out like that.

About the snipping: I had to stop after doing about 2/3 of it and have M finish. It's the first thing I've encountered which truly aggravates my carpal tunnel. In fact, part of the index finger on my right hand is still numb. That killed my original plan to make us one, too. I do love this quilt, and it's really very easy if a little fussy and time consuming.

Oh, the in-laws? As I mentioned, they're the hardest people EVER to buy for. We sent them a fruit basket from Harry & David, and they loved it. We really do wish we could give them something more personal, but it's really not worth it. We've tried, believe me.

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