Christmas is coming

and that means it's time to start (or continue) knitting Christmas gifts.

I had a lovely weekend of knitting at the Desiring God Annual Conference. And it was an excellent time to listen, think, and be challenged. The conference audio is available on-line, and I plan to listen to the sessions I missed, and re-listen to some of the other sessions. Voddie Baucham was the most charasmatic speaker ... and he added a new description to my vocabulary. In the world, he said, there's black people, and not-so-black people. God loves the not-so-black people just as much as he does the black people.

Just think how much simpler forms would be if the race options were 'black' and 'not-so-black'. And the uproar if they were 'white' and 'not so white'. I am sure there are people in the world who would be offended at having to describe themselves as 'not-so-black' as well.

Here are my Conference Socks...

I tried a new toe with these. Instead of increasing at the sides of the foot, I did a star-shaped increase, sort of. After casting on 14 stitches with a figure eight cast on, I increased one stitch at the beginning of each needle, every second row, until I got to my regular 60 stitches. Above the heel, I used a ripple pattern over 66 stitches ... but didn't bother with evenly increasing. I just changed one k2tog from each repeat into a k1, and all was well.


My knitting basket currently looks like this:
And, in honor of wacky hair day, my daughter currently looks like this:

We've added a few post-it notes to the skewers to help her remember her various errands at church tonight. Not that she can read the messages, of course, stuck in her hair as they are ... but for those forgetful people who are supposed to be getting things from me via her, they'll be a handy reminder.

A package arrived today from KnitPicks with yarn for my Christmas knitting. And another very small package arrived with an ancient (1880) grammar book in it. Imagine my surprise when I opened the front cover and found MY first name in there. In handwriting that is as dead-on mine as any I've ever seen. Wrong last name, though. But how strange to open a new-to-you book and find your handwriting in it!

My new harp is still consuming as much time as I spare to devote to it. I'm tuning it daily, and playing recognizable songs. Practice, plus some time, should make it even more fun!

And somewhere in the back of my mind is the realization that I should be either re-reading Pride and Prejudice, or else starting to answer discussion questions for it. I keep pushing that into the back of my mind, though. I can get away with that for another week, and then it will have to move to the forefront.