Advent Calendar Scarf Day 18, Sunday December 18, 2011

It is 10:36 am, and I am just sitting down to work on my scarf and listen to some Dracula, from Craftlit, and of course, my son, Luke, needs a ride to his girlfriend's house.  Luckily, the Doc wants to finish putting up the Christmas lights, so they are doing that first.  Thank goodness we have tall sons.  Luke is about 6'1".  Doc is not short, but also not tall.  Luke can really help put up those lights.  Oh well, maybe I can get one row in.

Today is going to be a running entry, with notes as I knit.

It is now 12:56.  Luke is on is way to watch C dance her final Nutcracker with the Olympic Ballet Theatre, I did a quick Dredgion on Aion, I'm back on Craftlit listening to Dracula, (I'm behind and trying to catch up), and ready to KNIT.

3:02  Finished one repeat and am taking a break to eat some soup I started earlier, and make some corn muffins to go with it.  My Aunt J sends the most wonderful Christmas gifts every year.  For years she sent all kinds of candy gifts, like this GIANT "Christmas Card" made of chocolate, and so on.  But lately, she has joined some kind of women's group, and for a charity fund raiser, they make these soup "kits."  This is what she sends now at Christmas.   So, tonight I'm making the Minestrone.  The package has the beans, peas, spices and pasta.  I added browned Sweet Italian Sausage, water, 3 cans of chopped tomatoes, and some onion, carrots and celery.  I can not tell you how yummy these soups were last year.  And, I am so happy that I don't have to do anything else for dinner tonight (and maybe tomorrow night as well! ). 

Ok, off to eat, then back to the scarf and more Dracula!

The soup was amazing.  I have to write Auntie J another babbling letter of thanks.  I want her to give me the spice recipe for these soups.  I am now at work on the 2nd repeat, but I'm going a bit slower.  I have started reading the "slow knitter" thread on the Advent Calendar Scarf Group and I can't knit and read.  But O!  I feel like I missed out a bit on the camaraderie of the group.  These are simply the nicest people. There are some who have posted, way back at the beginning, that they are knitting super slowly and are "afraid" that they can't keep up.  Wow, the support!  Some are explaining that they finished last year's scarf in the summer.  Some are explaining that it is the process and enjoyment of the knitting that is important.  And the learning, too, of course.  I think that I got a bit competitive with my self and my determination to "keep up," made me deliberately stay off the site.  Well, I don't "think" this, I KNOW this.  I stopped looking at other peoples' finished sections, since I wanted to see if I could knit without any crutches.  But really, it is the group that makes this so much fun.  I can make a sampler scarf any time.

That being said, BACK TO THE 2ND REPEAT!

YAY!  finished at 7:44 pm.  That is a record for me.  I'll show you what today's pattern looks like:

With yesterday's pattern:

And what the whole scarf looks like:

(with a little help from Selena)

And how big it is right now unblocked:

(about 49.5 in)

Then, I am going to have another bowl of my fabulous soup, and knit the spacer section for Day 19 and maybe even knit some of Day 19's pattern.

7 Days until Christmas!

Good night everyone.  I will be knitting (and blogging about it) tomorrow.

C. A. Losi