Even the afternoon seems to have got away from me...

Here, however, are some Christmas pictures.

Rachel's husband Ed, decorating the tree on Christmas Eve, with Perdita's help:

The turkey. Ed carved it in the kitchen, to keep things simple. I took this picture to show my husband what it looked like. (He cannot move about easily.) You can also see the list which Rachel and I worked to all that morning:

Christmas dinner itself:

Perdita has taken to sleeping on the plate rack. It is a good spot for keeping an eye on dripping taps in the sink below, and it allows one to confront one's parents eyeball-to-eyeball when needful:

Perhaps tomorrow for pictures of Christmas in Greece.

I started the year off well yesterday, with progress on the tax as well as on the Dunfallandy blankie border. I'm no longer in a panic about finishing by March, nor about running out of yarn. I will need to wind another skein today –that always feels like progress.

This is all just as hoped – round and round in beautiful madtosh yarn, red yarn, to see me through the dark days. I toyed with the idea of doing the increases with YO's, being rather tired of M1R and M1L. And YO's would be much easier to see when I forget whether I'm doing an increase round or a plain one. But I stuck with the pattern, feeling that we didn't need another design element. The smooth corners look good, as I thought they would.

Be Inspired: You say the owner is named Mei, Knitlass. Does that mean that she's a bit Japanese? She had some wonderful Japanese pattern books. The next time I go, I will concentrate on browsing through them. I had a Japanese knitting phase, some will remember. Their wonderfully clever schematic patterns can be mastered and employed without a further grasp of the language. I even managed an earflap hat for a granddaughter one Christmas, from a Japanese pattern.

I spent an appropriately new-yearsy time yesterday wondering whether I should attempt a third bridal veil. When I knit Sharon Miller's “Princess” I imagined granddaughters passing it reverently from hand to hand. But of course no one wants to look like last year's bride.

More on this subject anon, I hope.