As you may have seen, I had an ambitious weekend filled with holiday activities planned for Rudi’s absence.

It didn’t go according to plan.

I mean, I still got things done.

I hit three holiday markets/craft fairs — the DC Women’s Business Center Holiday Bazaar, the Upshur Street Art and Craft Fair, and the GRUMP Market — and did some shopping at each one. I’m not done shopping, but I’m probably in better shape than usual this far out from Christmas (yes, I totally realize I just gave you early planners a heart attack with that statement). I need to finish my online shopping over the next day or two and then hopefully finish the local shopping next weekend.

I rode my bike to take advantage of the mild, dry weather.

I vacuumed, did a load of laundry, and cleaned off my desk. Apparently it had been longer than I’d thought since I’d done the last did that latter item. But I couldn’t work on my Christmas mix or write my Christmas cards without taking care of it. (Yes, I suppose I could write Christmas cards in ink that isn’t red or green, but that’s what I like to do. But I did really need to clear things out of the way to access my cd drive on the computer before I could import some of my new holiday tunes.)

I learned all about the new composting system at my community garden and helped get it set up for us to begin using it.

I read Paul Auster’s holiday piece, “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story.” It was, as Auster hoped, unsentimental, but also maybe not quite as cheering as I was looking for this weekend. Don’t get me wrong: it’s quite good. Just not an especially good match for my mood. If your mood is more upbeat than mine and you have a spare 10–15 minutes, I’d recommend the book. ISOL’s illustrations are particularly striking and fit with my Sesame Street-inspired impressions of New York City in the 1970s. I have Frank Baum’s and J.R.R. Tolkein’s Christmas books in my drawer at work, so I’m hopeful they’ll be more to my taste.

I ate the spiciest grilled cheese ever (it had habaneros in it) and drank a delightful housemade soda (plum-cinnamon).

I started work on my Christmas mix by eliminating some of the carryover songs from last year and by adding some new ones. I’m a little negligent about locating the tracks I’ve been wanting to include, so need to get moving more solidly on that.

I watched the Garfield Christmas special from the ’80s, the “Blizzard” episode of Fame (which did not take place at Christmas, as I’d misremembered it doing), and the first episode of the new TNT show, The Librarians. (I never saw any of the movies, but Amazon offers them for streaming. I guess I’ll have to decide if my boycott of them extends to their non-physical products…) The CW is airing the episodes a week later than the cable premieres and it’s online, so I’d recommend watching. It’s Indiana Jones meets nerds.

I’m still hoping to paint my nails, do the handwashing, and put away my summer clothes (not in that order) tomorrow morning, but as of right now, those are untackled, as is the baking (I got as far as planning what I was going to make, but not actually to getting off the couch). No cards got written, but I’ve pulled everything out that’s needed to get started on them, so perhaps that will happen tomorrow night after Rudi and I get home from the airport. I didn’t do as much knitting as I would have liked, but it required too much effort to open the knitting bag sitting next to me. And while I dozed on the sofa quite a bit (the one good thing about Rudi being away is that I had options for where to lounge), I wouldn’t really say I got enough sleep, and I felt it.

Speaking of which, I’m going to toddle off to bed now in hopes of getting up early enough in the morning to do those things before work.

Weekending along with Pumpkin Sunrise.

If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you know that I like to make knitting plans that I will never keep, regardless of good intentions. It’s good to have goals and I like to establish plans, even if I don’t mind changing or abandoning them.

So, for my first goal of 2015 (unattainable or otherwise), I intend to knit 15 hats. The only purely knitting podcast I listen to (as opposed to CraftLit, which is about crafting and books) that remains in production is Stash & Burn, and next year they’re doing a hat-along. I like hats and I look good in them. Rudi likes hats. My mother likes hats. Other people like hats. Everyone I know has a head, which automatically makes them eligible to wear a hat (even if some opt not to avail themselves of the option).

I have a couple skeins that were bought for hats and are already wound for quick access. I have an extensive collection of hat patterns. Now it’s just matching up the two and casting on (after I finish a project or two).

I can’t wait! I’m so excited to have a new hat!

When the world is too much with me, it is nice to have someplace to escape to and my place tends to be books and knitting.

Among the projects I picked up (and put down again) a few times in the last weeks are the fingerless mitts I started last year. I’m up to the thumb separation on mitt #2 (the thumb remains unfinished on mitt #1, as well), and if I could focus for half an hour, I’d make it past that part and be rapidly sailing toward home. The mitts are now in my bag in an effort to facilitate doing just that.

The book is one of two I’m currently reading and the one I just started today. It was an impromptu grab from the new books shelf at the library, but now it’s coming due and there are holds that prevent me from renewing it. As you might guess from the title Ho-Ho-Homicide, it’s a murder mystery. The protagonist has been asked to look into a Down East tree farm a far-off friend inherited recently, so she and her husband have just arrived there (somewhat reluctantly) from their home in Moosetookalook, Maine. There are mysterious circumstances surrounding the inheritance, and our protagonist has just sighted a grove of trees that seems sinister. I suspect the action is about to take off.

I’ll be honest. It’s a little hard to read when every word is being said aloud in your head by Cary Elwes over a Mark Knopfler track. But it is a burden that I’m willing to take on, even after my hot chocolate is gone.

That’s right, folks. The man behind the Man in Black has written a book all about the experience of making the most quotable movie of, if not all time, at least my lifetime.

I would read this book if it were terrible. But I am delighted to report that, as of 50 pages in, at least, it’s not. Elwes’ coauthor/ghostwriter/writer has done a good job of keeping his cadence and the first chapters are interspersed with sidebars from other people involved in the book, similar to how it would be to watching a dvd with the commentary track turned on.

As for what’s on the needles, I’ll admit that I’m carrying projects around with me everywhere these days, but not actually knitting on them a whole lot. I pulled the bags containing my Hey Teach sweater and the second skein of yarn out of storage more than a week ago, but haven’t done more than shift the baggies around. I cast on a new stripey sock at a meeting, but it’s gone back into the pie chest with only a few rounds complete. I moved my fingerless mitts into a project bag from the baggie where they’ve been languishing the last 10 months. And Rudi’s sock is stalled out just before the start of the heel flap. I’ve got no excuse for why the needles lie idle — and certainly it’s not for lack of projects or new project ideas — but I do hope productivity picks back up again soon.

What are you reading or working on?

Yarning along with Ginny.

The highlight of this weekend was the Maryland Alpaca and Fleece Festival. Held at the Howard County Fairgrounds (home to the gigantic Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival each spring), this was a much smaller, homier gathering.

For those who’ve been to Sheep & Wool, you know how crowded the fairground lot gets, requiring people who arrive in the late morning to park across the street (those of us who arrive in the afternoon often can find spots closer in already vacated by the early birds). Well, today, you could pull right up. There were about 40 cars in the front lot and people were able to park in the fairground lot itself all afternoon. Also, for comparison, this festival only took up three of the animal barns, one of the northern buildings (where they sell the festival gear from in the spring), and two of the small buildings past the Lions Club food building.

There was a nice assortment of vendors (including local farmers selling fleeces and handspun natural yarn, several angora rabbit sellers, and more generic yarn purveyors, as well as people selling ceramics, food, and knit products) and a dozen alpaca to feed and pet and, if you so desired, buy. (Did you know the alpaca industry is highly regulated? You have to register every alpaca that is born on your property and if you sell one, you have to include its title, not dissimilar to selling a car.)

Anyone in a barn was bundled up, with warm drinks on hand, but those in the more protected buildings were more relaxed, with many of them spinning or knitting in their booths. We wandered around, chatted with a few vendors, made a couple purchases, bought some lunch from the food truck on site, and watched two alpacas interact with two dogs. (They did not care for the munchkin dog, but were fascinated by the husky. The husky, in turn, thought them interesting singly, but got a little skittish when they moved in unison his direction.)

Before we left, we took a second turn through the barns, stopping to feed some of the alpaca. (They’re noses are very tickly, and the alpaca are not above chewing (gently) on your fingers if they think they can suck anything off them.)

While today was sparsely attended, apparently the crowds were larger on Saturday, which makes sense, since that was the nicer of the weekend days. Today’s weather was overcast and a bit raw, and we ran into rain within 15 minutes of leaving the festival, which meant the poor vendors had to pack up in precipitation, never a fun thing for fiber folk.

We had a nice time and were glad to have gone. Large fiber festivals are an experience not to be missed, but the smaller ones are more enjoyable for those who like a less harried environment or the ability to chat with the people raising or making the yarn you knit with.

The weekend also included sleeping in, laundry, watching some classic movies, a trip to the garden, a bike ride to a coffeehouse a couple miles away (look for a coffeeneuring post later this week), a trip to the farmers market, replacing the colored lights around the living room, and finishing a book and a knitting project.

How about you? How was your weekend?

Weekending along with Pumpkin Sunrise.

Made from Knitterly Things Vesper Sock in the Autumn Sky colorway, my socks posed before an autumn sky in Brattleboro, Vermont, when Rudi and I were on vacation last month. They’ve also been apple picking, gone out to eat in a former train station, and just hung around town.

The socks only took me a month to knit, Sept. 1–Oct. 1, but I’ve been slow to post about them because I love wearing them too much to wash them and stage a shoot.

I highly recommend Vesper Socks (although I caution against machine-washing). This is the second pair I’ve made with her yarn and I have one more skein (in a St. Patrick’s Day-themed colorway) in my stash.