Days 21 and 22

Yesterday’s offering was another skein of hand-dyed floss:

I’ll have to check and see if it is one of the colours for one of the Advent stitchy box patterns.

Today:

Treats!! ☕️  

Days 19 and 20 and Dawdling

I knew yesterday's offering was metal because another package kept sticking to it magnetically.

It was a tart tin and circle template that could be used for finishing the Snowman Ornament or any other of that ilk.

Today's had the magnet that kept stitching to yesterday's tart tin.

A very handy, magnetic hook.

The rest of the morning I've been goofing off when I should be doing some work around here. I seem to have fallen into that habit in the mornings I don't have an appointment that takes me out of the house. I have so many ways I entertain myself: doing puzzles, watching YouTube videos, lurking on social media, corresponding with folks via email and texts, planning my next projects, etc. When I was going to elementary school, my mom used to have to 'encourage' me to 'get a move on' as I'd be dawdling in my room before getting out the door to school. Now, I'm usually late to informal things because I get caught up in goofing off.

For an upcoming trip, the flight was to be at 7:30am. I booked an airport limo. Then we got word that the departure time was changed to 3:15pm. The good news was that I could cancel the limo and just take public transit to the airport. The bad news was we'd be missing our entire first day at the resort.

I started stressing about how busy things would be getting to the airport during the holidays and decided this morning to rebook a limo. I'll reserve the public transit conveyances for when I return home. My neighbour again has kindly offered to pick me up from the GO station.

Because of the change of departure time (more than 6 hours), we may be compensated between $250 and $700. One of the persons in our group is looking into that. There is a passenger's 'bill of rights' called  Air Passenger Protection Regulations. We'll see what comes of it.

Now I must 'get a move on' and quit dawdling.

Day 18

As I predicted, today's offering

was two pretty blue colours of DMC and some Aida cloth which can be used for the Cozy Snowman Ornament from yesterday's package.

If I were to stitch this project, I'd probably use linen or an evenweave of some type. 

Yesterday I went into The Big City to meet Scooter for a visit and an early supper. We just ate at the food court at Union Station; nothing fancy. He's in the process of moving back to his mom's and will be completely out of his apartment at the end of the month. He has plans to go to Portugal for a couple of month in February so I look forward to following him on his travels.

My 5 year-old laptop has been acting up; not connecting properly to the Wi-Fi network. I thought I'd take it in to get checked out then figured for what it would cost me to get it fixed, and considering its age, I might as well just buy a new laptop. I found a deal at an electronics big box store but the only place the desired model was in stock was way across town. I beetled over there last night and got the last one. Remembering the hassle of transferring programs, etc. from one to another laptop, I signed up for the transfer service, too. The plan was to take the laptop in within 30 days for the transfer.

Once home, I unpacked the new laptop and fired it up. Except for a few things, it's very similar to my old one. AND since most of my stuff was stored in cyber space, the transfer went surprisingly easily. I've had to adapt to a new browser as I can't seem to find the old one and my preferred photo editing program, Picasa, no longer exists for download. I have to adapt to some other photo editing procedure. Not too difficult, just a bit of a learning curve. 

The night before, in anticipation of the old laptop completely crashing, I transferred all the Pictures and Documents to an external hard drive. So i'm pretty much up and running with the new one. I'll return to the big box store and get a refund for the transfer service I don't need.

Today I didn't have to get up for anything so slept in a bit. After breakfast I set to the task of fully finishing a Christmas ornament I finished stitching and embellishing months ago. For such a small thing, it usually takes me at least two hours to complete all the steps:

• cutting the cardboard for mounting
• finding and cutting the batting
• cutting the ornament into a circle with 3/4" border
• selecting the fabric for the back of the ornament
• spraying adhesive on the cardboard so the batting won't slip
• stitch running stitches around the stitching  
• centering the stitching and batting on the cardboard
• pulling the running stitches yo-yo style to mount everything on the mounting cardboard
• repeating this for the fabric for the back of the ornament
• locate the glue and glue the back and front together, securing with Wonder Clips
• making the cording
• attaching the cording with glue in the channel around the edge, leaving a loop at the top for hanging.
• sewing the top and bottom of the cording into place.
• creating and attaching the bow
• attaching the date charm to the back
• unravelling the bottom threads and pressing out the twist.

Again, nothing is difficult, just a lot of fiddly steps. And yes, I attached HotFix 'jewels' for the bling factor instead of beads.

It's my version of last year's Christmas Wreath Ornament from Mary Corbet. It's a free pattern and I stitched two of them using Sticky Fabri-Solvy on which I'd printed the design rather than trying to trace the design onto the fabric with a light box. I made the second design a little bigger by changing the settings on my printer. It's all stitched but won't get FFOd this year. 

Tonight is our guild's Christmas get together and ornament exchange, hence my need to FFO this ornament. I just need to wrap it.

Now that I have FFOd another project, I am free to start stitching a new one. I have a couple of others I've been working on so I'll reserve a new one for during or after the holidays.

Days 15 - 17

I had to take a break from posting the last couple of days. I had a major malfunction of my laptop and couldn't get it to use a browser. It was almost 6 years old so I figured it would be money better spent getting a new one rather than trying to fix the old one. 

Last night I transferred all the Documents and Photos to an external hard drive in preparation for getting a new laptop. Fortunately, there was a sale on the one I wanted: 15.6" screen, 1TB SSD hard drive, 16GB RAM, etc. It's basically my previous one, just upgraded a bit. I also purchased the service to transfer everything but when I got the new one home, everything transferred quite nicely as everything was in 'the cloud' or some cyber storage place. I will return to the store tomorrow to get a refund on the transfer service I don't need. 

Day 15

A microwave bowl caddy.

Day 16

soup mix. Just add an onion, zucchini, bacon that has been cooked and chopped, a can of diced tomatoes, and a bunch of spinach.  

and today, Day 17

another pattern designed by Marlene,

including the snowman button.

Tomorrow evening is the guild's Christmas get together and ornament exchange. I have my ornament stitched I just need to fully finish it. It's not hard to do, it just takes a couple of hours to assemble all the necessary tools and materials. I don't like leaving things to the last minute but sometimes it can't be helped. 

Mundane stuff now...

I've been frequenting my dentist's office quite a bit lately. Before my trip, I had the prep work done for a crown and a temporary one installed. It usually takes a couple of weeks for the permanent crown to be created and shipped back to my dentist from the west end of Toronto. 

After I got home, the temporary crown came off. I put it back in place but it came off again the next day. I called the dentist to see if it could be affixed more firmly again as I was afraid I'd swallow it while eating or sleeping. The permanent crown appointment was for the next day so I thought I could hang on 'til then but somehow my permanent crown and those of three other patients were in a Purolater depot somewhere between Etobicoke and Oshawa. So instead of putting on the permanent crown, I went in and had the temp attached more firmly. Fingers were crossed the permanent crown would show up before my dentist went on holidays.  He put in a rush order for another one to be created.

Then two days ago, a hunk of the adjacent tooth broke off, leaving a really sharp area on the lingual (tongue) side of the molar. This was lacerating my tongue so I called the dentist to see if I could get in to get the thing filed down, filled, or patched somehow. Lo and behold, my permanent crown arrived so I went in to have it installed AND the adjacent tooth filed down. It looks like that adjacent tooth will need a crown in the new year. My dental insurance only covers part of one crown per year so we'll probably get working on it before my next cleaning appointment in April or sooner if it bothers me.

Day 14 and a Lot More (mostly Stream of Consciousness)

Today’s offering: a zipper pull or stitch marker

While in Innsbruck, we had some time to explore and shop on our own. On the main square where we were meeting up was a yarn and fabric shop, Kapferer. They had some lovely embroidered goods, fabrics, and upstairs sewing notions and yarn.

Their window display is what caught my eye.

What?? Yarn on the cozy chair?? I had to explore…

Early on our trip a fellow knitter asked me if I had knit my hat. She, too, was wearing a Musselburgh. Rebecca and I became instant knit buddies.

She also sported her striped, Where’s Waldo scarf and I wore my green Swallowail shawlette and Latvian mittens.

I knew I had to find her and tell her about the yarn shop. 

Once I found her, we went inside to explore. A couple of days earlier, one of the ladies selling her hand-knit items at a booth showed me the yarn she was using to knit a pair of socks. I certainly don’t need to add to my sock yarn stash but this yarn had yak content. You don’t see that every day. I was intrigued.

(Scroll down to red text to avoid knitting content)

I found it at Kapferer! Regia 4-ply Merino Yak Color - 58% merino wool, 28% nylon, 14% yak. 

And the label gives the name for wool in 24 languages, nylon in 18, and yak in 14!

I have never seen this yarn here in North America. Granted I haven’t really been doing any yarn shopping in the last 10 or 15 years except for particular projects.

With that amount of nylon content, the socks should be very durable. The yak and merino content will make them very cozy.

When I knit a heel flap/wedge heel, I usually do an eye of partridge (EOP) pattern - a staggered rib as follows;

Row 1:* sl1, K1. Repeat from * to the last stitch, K1.

Row 2: Sl1, Purl

Row 3: Sl1, *Sl1, K1. Repeat from * to the last stitch, K1.

Row 4: Sl1, Purl

Repeat these 4 rows until the heel flap is square.

After that, I knit to 1 stitch past the centre, K2tog, K1 and turn. 

Then I continue the EOP until I’ve decreased back down to the desired number of sts for the foot:

Purl row: Sl1 purl to end.

Row 1: *Sl1, K1. Repeat until 1 st before the gap, K2tog, K1

Row 2: Sl1, purl to end.

Row 3: Sl1, * Sl1, K1. Repeat from * to 1 st before the gap, k2tog, K1

Row 4: Sl1, Purl to end

This gives you a double thickness on the bottom of the heel (where I wear holes in mine).

If you also wear holes on the balls of your feet, you could do the EOP on the sole sts when you get to that part of the foot, maintaining the pattern for the top of the foot.

Wow! I sure digressed there. But I hope you got my drift.

Oh ya, the old town square where the yarn shop was is also where the building with the famed Golden Roof is located. Maximilian I had it built between 1497 and 1500.

There are 2,657 gilded copper shingles, and fresco and relief decorations. 

Even the sewer access covers depict the Golden Roof as well as the ski jump as Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976.

Around the old town, children’s stories are depicted on buildings’ exteriors, for example, Rapunzel’s long braid:

and Pinocchio’s illuminated nose:

This whole building’s facade looked like an Advent calendar.

That night, after a delicious meal, we attended a Tyrolean show. There was lots of singing, yodeling, accordion and zither playing, and dancing. But the highlight for me was the alphorns.(tap the play button twice)

I was hoping they’d ask for a volunteer from the audience to play one. It would have been my opportunity to reprise my epic alphorn playing in 1981 on a boat cruise on Lake Lucern.

Sadly, they didn’t call me up.

Next stop, sunny Lindau, Germany. A delightful little island in Bodensee aka Lake Constance.

Last night was supposed to be a meteor shower. I went outside and in spite of the cloudless sky, full moon, and all the ambient light in my suburban locale, I actually saw one, the first thing I got out there. 

Some Assembly Required

I ordered a mobile bookshelf from Amazon to organize my painting supplies. This is how I had been storing them. Higglety pigglety.

It arrived the next day - a box in a box. The instructions were pretty decipherable so I set to work. The necessary tools were included - a wee Philips screwdriver and a little wrench for tightening the casters. 

The screws would NOT go into the holes so I had to resort to using my cordless drill with the extra long Philips bit and a LOT of downward pressure. The extra power was required to force the screws into the holes.

Thank GOD the casters went in easily because there’s no way I could have exerted enough torque to get them into place. I was actually able to use the cheesy little wrench to tighten them up.

Ta-da!

Much better. 

I might even do some painting this weekend.

Day 13

I was intrigued by the shape and size of this package. The contents were small and lumpy.

How cute! Three charms: 2025, mittens, an a teacup.

Are they a hint of things to come? We shall see…

Today would have been Skip’s 80th birthday. Of course, I still miss him terribly but all the wonderful things and people in my life help me hurt a little less. There are so many fun things to look forward to and of course, I always have some new activity in the planning stages.

The Christmas Market trip really helped boost my spirits. I feel all Christmassy now. I’ve been saving a Christmassy jigsaw puzzle to do and found another one in my stash that I started and completed yesterday.

It was fun to do. 500 piece puzzles are my preferred size, too. They fit on my table well and don’t take me too long to complete. I have lots stacked up for future puzzling.

Advent Stitchy Box Day 12

Today’s treat was a beautiful skein of Classic Colorworks Caroling

Previous skeins in the box went with cross-stitch charts from subsequent days. Let’s see if this is the case for this one. 

My Epic Alpine Christmas Market Tour - Part One

Last spring, I watched a couple of videos that Kara and Nate produced about their visit to 9 countries' Christmas markets in 9 days. It intrigued me to the point I thought it would be fun to do. At our stitch day in July, I mused out loud, "I'm kinda interested in doing one of those Christmas market tours in Europe". My friend, Marilyn, immediately popped up like a prairie dog and said, "I'll go with you". We booked the Insight Alpine Christmas Markets tour two days later.

We decided to fly to Munich a day earlier so we'd have a day to somewhat recover from the flight. I later decided to book a business class seat for the overnight flight. I really wanted to try to sleep for the 8 hour flight. 

A benefit of being in business class is the use of the airport lounges before the flight. I first went to the Signature Suite and had an outstanding gourmet meal of a Winter Salad - maple sherry vinaigrette, whipped ricotta, pumpkin seed pesto, and crispy spaghetti squash; 

Beef Tenderloin with matchstick potatoes, roasted turnip, Romanesco, horseradish butter, and red wine jus; 

dessert was an Apple Mousse Dome with white chocolate yuzu cream, apple chip, and puff pastry. 

Of course I had a tasty rum-based cocktail. Then I headed over to the Maple Leaf lounge to sit in a comfy leather chair until boarding time. 

Once I boarded I got situated in my pod. I was provided with a bottle of water, pillow, quilted seat cover, duvet, and toiletry kit which contained socks, ear plugs, eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, Acqua di Parma lip balm and hand cream. 

The TV was at least 20". 

There were also controls for the seat to sit up, recline, or lie flat. And a massage feature which I, of course, employed.

One thing that surprised me was that I was not offered anything to drink upon boarding. Nor anything for over 1.5h after takeoff. I watched the first episode of "Presumed Innocent" on the inflight entertainment channel and listened to an Audible podcast about the invention of e-cigarettes. Although I had brought my own earphones, I used the ones provided.

The flight was pretty smooth but I just couldn't get really comfortable. The seat in the lay flat position was very hard, so my hips and butt weren't that comfortable for sleeping. Oh well, first world problems. I have seen videos of other airlines' business class accommodations and in my limited experience, Air Canada didn't really measure up.

Once we arrived in Munich we made our way through Customs and Immigration. It was not like any airport I'd been in as we were not funneled in the right direction, rather free to roam around and easily could have just left the building before going through the regular government channels. There was a LOT of walking during which I was very grateful to still be ambulatory and able to manage very well. 

One more thing, I used to get bad cramps and achy calves after a couple of previous flights I'd taken. It was to the point that I was concerned enough that I considered seeking medical attention. I now have adopted the use of compression stockings (knee highs) for my air travel since my return flight from Denver last September. It has made a big difference - no more sore legs.

Once I retrieved my suitcase we headed for the airport shuttle bus that would take us to a station only a couple of blocks from our hotel, to which we could easily walk. And it was only 13€.

The Munich Marriott was very modern and nice. The room was huge and had all the amenities including many USB ports for us to plug in our devices for charging. We were too far from the city centre to explore there and instead rested in our room, then later ventured to a nearby grocery store for some snacks to sustain us until breakfast the next morning. We both had a meal on the plane before landing. 

We were both happy to take it easy and enjoyed an evening snack of herbed cream cheese, hummus, sesame bread sticks, and a drink. 

I don't remember much of what we did the next day until meeting up with our tour group in the lobby at 3pm. We were introduced to our guide, Denise, and driver Istvan. We then piled into the bus for a trip to the city centre and the Munich Christmas Market at Marienplaz. 

(to be continued...)