Actual Christmas Knitting

Knitting
I got the Bronte Hat finished. The Rowan Plaid isn't all wool as I thought, but is still soft and warm and very nice to work with. It knits up in no time at all and is as much fun as I hoped. I put tassels on but I must have done that after I took the photograph.

I came across these photographs recently. It's the Hamish jacket from Rowan's Tadpoles and Tiddlers, by Kim Hargreaves.

I made it a long time ago: I was a fairly experienced two-colour knitter by then, but I found this a real chore. I didn't mind, because of who it was for, but I've never knitted tartan again.

I won't tell you who it is, because he's fifteen now and taller than I am, but the jacket is cute, isn't it?

Now that I'm out of danger as far as starting any more Christmas knitting is concerned, I've cast on for a January birthday present. I think you can probably guess what it is. 

It's two shades of Wollmeise, a purple and Magnolie Medium. The purple is completely wrong in the photo; it's a real  royal purple. I'm looking forward to getting lots of it done over Christmas and I just hope it isn't going to transform before my eyes into a horrible mistake.

Weather
I've bought a spiked ferrule for my walking stick. I've wanted one for years because a rubber ferrule on ice is one of the most useless things imaginable, but I thought they were probably illegal. However, it appears that are available and I've bought one, a Swedish one called Ingrid. Now that I am thus armed, the weather has warmed up and Edinburgh is likely to be one of the warmest places in Britain on Christmas Day. You couldn't make it up. I saw the most extraordinary cloud this afternoon, just before sunset, and tried to photograph it with no success: a couple of minutes later, Ian Rankin the crime novelist posted a picture of it to his Twitter feed. I don't seem to be able to copy it to this page, but here's the link Edinburgh 5 mins ago on Twitpic  It looked like the sort of cloud which could easily conceal an alien spaceship, which might explain a few things, but it was distinctly pink which bodes well.

Penguins
The naughty penguins have been very popular on YouTube and some other people have posted the clip, so this should be visible outside the UK. The title isn't mine.



One of the many good things about this series is the music, which was specially written.

Christmas
Lastly, here is a real Christmas clip. You might want to adjust your speakers.



It was posted to YouTube by the embarrassed big sister in the front row with the gold halo. I hope her sister's forgiven her. The Baby Jesus sleeps all the way through.

I hope everyone has a happy festive season and doesn't embarrass themselves, or at least not when the camera's rolling.