Cozy-ness

I am feeling cozy today, so here's a photo of me in my kitchen, surrounded by things I like, wearing my new Silk Garden tunic, the coziest thing I ever made. The sweater was done top-down using one of the newer shades of Noro Silk Garden, with the edges in Cash Iroha in a neat greenish-blue shade. The increase line looks especially sharp, since I used left-slanting and right-slanting raised increases, creating a lovely pattern. The cuffs and other edges use a seed sticth/stockinet "rib" from one of the knitting on the edge books. After I finished the sweater, I bravely threw it in the washer, which softened the fabric incredibly, and made it a bit "hazy." It didn't really felt, just softened.

I like the picture. It shows all sorts of things about me. I am in my kitchen, which I like a lot. There is a pansy trivet on the left, representing one of my collections, and a trivet shaped like a pentacle on the right, representing my pagan interests. Plus you can see at least two baskets I collect. And there's a tangelo, representing healthy food! And my nice new haircut!

As for knitting, right now I am working on the set for the former coworker's twins. I have made two hats and am now on the first little dress. Little, heh. The ruffled border started out at a whopping 424 stitches. I now have "just" 212, and will continue to decrease up the dress. It's a one-year-old size, done on, as you would guess, very small needles. I'll show a picture of the completed pink hat in a few days.

It's icky outside--threatening freezing rain, so we are all staying inside. After cooking chili with Suna's cornbread last night for me and RM, Lee, even though he isn't feeling well, is making fajitas again for Older Son's 16th birthday dinner. Younger Son and I made him a fun cake--the classic chocolate cake you mix right in the pan. Tomorrow is the actual day, so I'll post a photo then. We had a meeting scheduled tomorrow night, so had planned to celebrate tonight, but I think it will be weathered-out.

I am happy with myself today. I sang "Abraham, Martin, and John" at Ye Olde Spiritual Community this morning, and did better than I thought I would. No amplification, even, so I had to personally drown out the choir singing "ooh" in the background. And Bill of my singing group got really sick and could not play the guitar, so Lee stepped up and did an awesome job on that. I think a lot of folks are really glad he got dragged into the community. I feel like my self esteem is saying, "Hi Suna, you don't totally suck!" We had to cancel practice for the dreaded "singing at a marathon gig" today, and had planned to record some of that for those of you BEGGING to hear us sing (actually for Lee to try to learn the songs that the other two guys keep buzzing through quickly), but we'll try to do it again. Caveat: these are folks doing music for fun, not pros.

So, I hope you all are having a good MLK Day weekend, if you are in the US. I am getting the rest I wanted so badly, so I am a happy camper.