Quiet Christmas

It was a nice quiet Christmas this year at our house. We didn't even open our gifts until about 2:30 on Christmas day. We went to a couple's house we know from church for dinner on Chistmas Day and watched the movie Meet Me In St Louis which I had never seen in it's entirety before.
Michael and I went together and bought a GPS for us both to use and I made a hat for David with Baby Alpaca Grande to wear when he's out in the yard.
Mom sent us some great knives she bought in Iowa, some chocolate and a new sonic toothbrush to brush our teeth after the chocolate. She also sent some cookies which were mostly still in one piece, but you could tell the package was definitely 'not' handled with any care whatsoever.

This is the hat I made for David.



I also made one for myself and one for Michael with Misti Alpaca Handpainted Chunky. We both noticed that the handpainted yarn isn't as soft as the solid colors. Maybe it's the dyeing process that has affected the texture?!



I'm currently working on another Noro Stripe scarf with the Cashmere Island. This is a little softer than the Silk Garden and I'm also making this one wider, so I bought 6 skeins at Cast-On Cottage with my prize money from the Shop Hop. The color stripes are shorter, but I still like the color play between the two alternating skeins. I totally stole the scarf photo idea from The Yarn Doctor. Although his looks much nicer. Thanks Brett!





I'm working on a fleece jacket for Michael that is baby seals. I just need to put in the zipper and finish the bottom hem. I'll post a pic as soon as it's done.

origami

I bought a new book on modular origami last week, Unit Ployhedron Origami by Tomoko Fuse, so I've been on an origami kick again lately. Most of the stuff I've done is in the library where I work. The large white sphere in the background is comprised of 180 pieces of paper. It's about 2.5 feet across. The picture is a little deceiving. It's on another shelf about 6 feet away from the pieces in the foreground. It took me about a week to fold and assemble. Each unit has two parts that have to be folded and assembled first.




The multi colored star in the foreground is probably the one that has been the most difficult to assemble so far. The folding part is not hard, it's just getting them all together and intersecting in the right way. It's actually 5 three sided pyramids all intersecting. Each color is a single pyramid.



This is one I just finished this morning. It's comprised of 60 pieces of paper and I used old books covers from children's books for the paper. The paper is nice and heavy and most of them are glossy and the colors won't fade in the sun. It's about 14" across.

Who says you can't herd cats?!