Christmas 2008 From Coast to Coast

Catching up on a little more Christmas! As usual our Christmas time is spent whirlwinding around between Gabriel's family in Western North Carolina and zooming out to my family and our friends out in California. Here is a little smattering of the fun that was had between December 21st and New Years.

First family photos now that all the Cade children are all married off. This was taken in front of the wonderful 200 year old barn on my sister in-law Emily's house. Note the Inga hat on Alex's big head! The hat that was soooo huge on everyone else I tried it on is actually almost too small on him.

Out in California my aunt Sherry hosted a McDowell dinner Christmas Eve at the Pacific Union Club (swanky!). Fun to get dolled up but next time I think I have to insist that my 14 year old sister, Addie is not allowed to wear heals!

Ah, Christmas! The reindeer and Santa are ceramic and have been in my dad's family for decades. They were made pre Rudolph.

This was a wonderful day after Christmas that we went hiking down in Big Sur with my mom and Bruce. Chilly but beautiful.

My grandma Ruth and I. I made the scarf for her for Christmas. Traditional feather and fan pattern.

Our friends Nick and Analisa included us in their joint family Christmas party which was really fun. This is Nick dressing up his mom's famous brownies.

Nick's dad, brother and Analisa's brother jammin.

Analisa and her sibblings in the kitchen.


Bellow are all photos taken at my dad and Carolyn's awesome second home in Grass Valley, CA. It is modeled after a Victorian Fire House. No joke! The sleeping area is just one huge room upstairs with 4 queen sized beds and one twin all swathed in Carolyn's quilts and a huge game table in the middle.

Playing games.

No, we don't like Settlers of Catan or anything, why do you ask?

Anne tucked up with Ginger working on her Phd.

My sweet sister and sweet husband tucked up together. I feel like a proud mom catching her kids behaving like best friends. It is one of the things you always hope will be the case that your sibblings and partner love each other.

Mass self-education of needle felting. Our wonderful artist friend Lee declined but she sure got a kick out of sketching the frenzy.

Fierce competition of Boggle.

I don't even know what to say. This is Gabriel messing with our felting fleece.

The obligatory bonfire.

Homemade gifts

I had a lot of fun this Christmas adding and growing with the homemade gifts that were given by us. You already saw the wonderful Turn A Square hats that were made and other knits. Here are some of the other fun things. Dried apple chips and bananas, hot and sweet mustard, blackberry jam from the summer and yummy chai tea. I was pleased with the way the packaging worked out with the tea. I had found these great tins 1/2 off and then painted them white for labels. I had Gabriel do the writing because I don't like my handwritting and he insisted on doing them all with different labels which actually worked out to be really fun. Oh, and I do love packaging in brown lunch bags!

Inauguration Day 2009

I was unsure how to acknowledge this day through my blog. Many days my blog is more about sharing with all of you than it is something that is personally for me. Today I feel compelled to treat it more like a journal, an even more personal record of this day. Because the record I want to keep of today is not about recording specific facts but rather feelings, I think I could revise it forever. The task of putting emotions into words is perhaps one of life's great challenges so I feel a little shy sharing this today.

I decided to record this day in a small letter to the children that I do not yet have. I took a few photos today as well and I will try to upload them in the next couple of days.


My Dearest Ones,

I write to you from a magical day. A day of so many dreams realized. Today I have witnessed an amazing day in history. Martin Luther King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before I was born, the end of apartheid and the fall of the Berlin Wall occurred when I was too young to understand the significance. While I will always be able to tell you about where I was on September 11th and how dark the years that followed have been for our country, I now have a much more incredible day to tell you about.

Today is January 2oth, 2009. I am sitting with four of your grandparents tucked away in Celo. It has been snowing outside and a fire in the wood stove keeps us warm. This morning I woke up before the sunrise, giddy with excitement as if it were Christmas. Today is a day that I have been waiting and hoping and working for for many months. Today is the day that Barack Obama has become the 44th president of the United States.

This has been an incredible journey to get to this point. It has felt so long and at times I have tried even to guard my heart in case this had not been the outcome of this election. Ever since Obama came on the scene four years ago I am among the many that has been in awe of him and all that he stands for. It is not just that he shares many of the same political views that I do. It is that for many of us, he represents the essence of the American dream and all the tremendous opportunity, equality, and freedom that I had been raised to believe it offered. But he is beyond just a symbol, he has inspired an awakening in the people of America. We have found the strength and passion within each of us to take ownership once again of our own destinies as well as the destiny of our nation. Today, the people of America have awoken. Tired of losing our jobs, tired of this war, tired of not having health care, we have been inspired to rise up and see how we can participate in change.

The last two days have seemed so cosmically aligned. Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day. This has always been one of my favorite holidays. As a young girl I remember getting together with a friend of mine from elementary school to bake a cake for Dr. King and wanting even then to take the time to reflect on the better world that I get to live in because of his great sacrifices. To have this special holiday fall the day before the inauguration of the first African American president was a coincidence too hard to ignore. Now, yet again in this election, we have been shown that anything is possible. We have given the American Dream one of the most challenging tests it can be given and it has prevailed. The son of an African man, a boy who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, who worked hard and earned his right to this without connections, has become president of the United States.

There are no illusions about how hard the challenges ahead are. In Obama's words today; "Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real, they are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met." We know that the election of Obama is not a magic wand that will fix all of our world's problems but even this great honesty is so refreshing.

I may have not been there when Martin Luther King gave his I have a Dream Speech, I am not among those who will be able to tell you where they were when Kennedy was shot. But I was here today. I am tingling all over with the feeling of limitless possibilities for the world that I live in now and the one that you will inherit.

These are the final stanzas of the poem that poet Elizabeth Alexander wrote and delivered today during the inauguration. I leave you with these words my sweet children as little bread crumbs on the trail of lives that I hope you will lead with love guiding your way.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Christmas Mitts

Pattern: Endpaper Mitts
Source: See Eunny Knit!
Yarn: Knitpicks Palette
Colorways: Twig and Tide pool Heather for blueish ones. Iris Heather and Merlot Heather for the brownish ones.
Needles: Ribbing in size 0 dpns, body in size 1 dpns

More Christmas presents revealed. Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts which are available for free here on her long abandoned blog. I sure miss her blog. These were presents for my sister in-law and my sister in-law in-law. What the heck do you call that person that your brother in-law marries anyway? I guess I should just call her my sister. Luckily these girlies are both little like me. Even littler in fact so it was easy to get the sizing right. I did modify a bit from the pattern. I made them shorter then they are meant to be down the wrist by only doing chart A one time instead of the three (?) that it suggests. They are like precious little gems and fun to make too. I will have to make myself a pair.

Hats for the boys

Still got to fill you all in on the Christmas Knitting. I feel like I was fairly good this year about starting early. I started way back in September and still I was knitting right up until the end. Luckily everything made it on time. My grandmother had to wait one extra day to receive her scarf and there was one major freak out I had on the airplane when the last thumb on my sister's mitts just would not behave.

One of the big treats though with the Christmas knitting this year was that my sweet husband wanted to get involved as well. A few Christmas' ago he wanted to join in with the knitting of gifts because it made him uncomfortable that we were giving gifts from the both of us that only I had slaved over.

Gabriel has never been shy about what hobbies or tasks he takes on and is never afraid of what is usually classified as feminine work. I will never forget the time that we were in a parking lot one hot summer day and Gabriel was wearing a sarong around his waist and a car of teenage girls drove by and yelled "nice skirt" and giggled away.

When Gabriel was little his family spent a year living in Ireland. While there, with no television and with the long cold damp winter, all of the family picked up knitting, even the little ones. I don't think he has knit a stitch since he was 5 but the stigma of knitting was long gone and his brilliant Cade fearlessness at trying something new has turned him into a wonderful knitter.

For this year we picked out Brooklyntweed's Turn a Square Hat to work on together for a number of the men in our lives. Gabriel has always been really funny about Brooklyntweed, looking over my shoulder and saying "ohhh are you looking at that Brooklyntweed again?" as if I have some secret internet lover. What can I say, don't we all wish we had Jared Flood living in a room of our houses cranking out his gorgeous rumpelstiltskinian knits for only us? Or that he at least was documenting our own hobbies for us with his luscious photography?

So, anyway, the Turn a Square hat turned out to be a very perfect project for Gabriel. Great for his skill level and fun for him to work with self striping yarn which we all know as the thing that keeps us going as the mystery unfolds through endless stockinette stitches. In the end Gabe made three and I made three. Only five got gifted though because I just had to keep one of the ones that Gabe made. How could I pass up the opportunity that when anyone compliments me on my hat I get to say "my husband made it" while beaming with pride.

Pattern: Turn A Square Hat
Source: Brooklyntweed
Yarn: different shades of Noro Silk Garden for stripes. Different shades of Cascade 220, Patons Classic Wool, and Galway Highland Heather for the main colors.
Needles: size 6 circular needles for ribbing and size 7 circulars and dpns for body

Around home and Christmas Knitting

This was a crazy find on the top of my compost tumbler the other morning. Ice in the form of a hollow looking spear.

Gabriel was pretty sick last week. Many who read this blog know that he is a third year medical student. Right now he doing a rotation in Internal Medicine. When you are on rotations, you don't take time off for pretty much anything. No dentist appointments, no DMV, and you have to be pretty darn sick to get sent home. Gabriel was the sickest he has been in a few years but I guess he still wasn't sick enough to go home. So this is what he looked like at the end of the day most days last week. This may or may not be better than another friend in med school who has no heat in her apartment and she needs to be there to let a worker in to fix it which is impossible with her rotation so she is just coming home to a freezing apartment each day. I can't tell you how many other stories there are like this. Med school is every bit as brutal as you could possibly imagine. At least Gabriel is safe and sound at this point. Another classmate recently fell asleep behind the wheel while driving home from the hospital after working 30 hours. He broke his pelvis and is lucky to be alive.

Sorry for the heavy tone.

Pattern: Drops 86-10 Heanband in Alaska
Source: Garnstudio website
Yarn: Sublime Cashmere merino silk aran
Colorway: #8 Sage
Needles: size 7 straight needles

One of the many Christmas presents being knitted. I am not sure what is safe to post or not around here in the way of Christmas knitting. Not sure how much my in-laws and certain friends look at my blog so I am proceeding with a little caution and I am sure that a whole lot more will be posted after the holidays. Believe me though, lot's of knitting is being done. What is even more fun is that Gabriel has also knit three hats as presents. I am stealing one of them though, it is just so cute and come on, my husband made it.

Slippers for Carolyn

Pattern: Aran Isle Slippers
Source: Interweave Knits Holiday 2008
Yarn: Plymouth Earth Oceanside Organic
Colorway: #4
Needles: size 6 straight and circular
Modifications: Did a different aran pattern for tops. Adapted aran pattern from the Lattice Cable on page 182 of the Cables & Arans Harmony Guide.

These were really fun, they are a great basic pattern that could be adapted to have lots of different patterns incorporated in the tops of them. These were a gift for my stepmother who helped me out with a wedding present for friends and generously gave me one of her amazing quilts to give to them. I have been looking for the right thing to knit for her as a thank you but it is hard A) because she is also a very crafty knitter, and B) because she is allergic to all animal fibers. The nice thing though about knitting with cotton is that these are very machine washable which is great seeing as they are worn on the feet. Thanks again Carolyn!

Hourglass Sweater

Finally finally getting around to sharing my hourglass sweater that was finished back in September. I do love it lots! It is my first basic pullover for myself. The yarn is sooo very warm, soft and beautiful. Pattern is super easy but I was pretty sad to find that even such a simple pattern could not be without a pretty major error in the raglan shaping. That is the last time that I neglect to check and see if there are any pattern corrections on Ravelry before getting started on a knitting project. My only modification was doing a few extra decrease rows to make the neck line a bit less boatnecked. This did make the front of the neck line flair up a bit on my neck and then another modification had to be brought in in order to calm that down a bit. Other than that, I loved the rest of the shaping and I am particularly pleased with the shape and little flair to the sleeves. These photos were taken over Thanksgiving on the back patio that is being built at my parent's new place in Celo, NC.

Pattern: Hourglass Sweater
Source: Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Queensland Collection, Kathmandu Aran
Colorways: Color 121 (oatmeal), Color 115 (green)
Needles: size 6 and 7 circulars and dpns