Happy Winter Holiday Thingy To You!

Or Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it. We are in Calgary visiting our families and our Calgary friends, for Christmas. The time is going way too fast. We've been having a wonderful trip, and it's ending far too soon.

In Which I Am Lucky

Zak and I were out running errands earlier this evening. We stopped at a dollar store on the way home from the chiroprator, and he picked up this hat:

...which he wore as we proceeded to the grocery store and liquor store. As you can imagine, it made a lot of people smile.
When we walked into the liquor store, a man was giving out samples of wine at the door. He complimented Zak, then he asked me, "are you with him?" Yes. "You're very lucky," he said. How did he know??

In other news, my grandparents visited this weekend. One thing I am really enjoying as I grow older, is getting to know the people in my family in a new way. People obviously talk to you differently when you're 30 and married, than they do when you're the underage oldest grandchild/niece/daughter.

I feel very fortunate that my Nona and Grandpa are young enough (though they're older than you would probably think from looking at this photo) and healthy enough that I have the opportunity to know them this way. They're pretty awesome. We took them out for Chinese hot pot Saturday night, then made Eggs Benedict Sunday morning. It was a really nice visit.

Spike Auf Deutsch

Ulrike has very kindly translated Spike into German, here.
Thanks again, Ulrike!! :)

I think this is a good excuse to show another photo of the scarf, don't you?

Thanks again to my friend Travis, who took the beautiful photos for me.

Great Minds...?

The other day I emailed Amy a photo of a beautiful entelac scarf I had made from some Silk Garden she had given me. (She gave me a sweater in it to rip and reuse, because she knew I had been lusting for the very colour of Silk Garden she had used.) (It's a gift, no photo for now.)

She wrote back and said she had just finished an entrelac scarf using Kureyon.

Okay, funny coincidence. Then tonight we talked on the phone, and it turns out we have also both just made the lovely Chanson en Crochet capelet. She has just started Inishmore; I am in the serious-commitment planning stages, have the yarn ready and am just waiting to finish my Christmas knitting. I have planned and bought yarn for a sweater for Zak, based on a particular cabled Phildar design from a few years ago; she had just been swatching for that same design.

Huh.

Okay, it wasn't uncommon for us to both become obsessed with the same design or idea when we both lived in Calgary and talked knitting incessantly and shared magazines back and forth, but this is ridiculous.

Spike

Yay! The Winter Knitty is up!!
And look:

My first Knitty pattern. I'm so happy. :)