The restaurant is clean and shuttered, I'm back in gear with my regular local massage clients, and the gale force winds of last night are finally quiet. Ah, yes, December in Boulder Town. You can always tell the high season is over when there are more people at Book Group than there are chairs, heh.
Everyone asks what we do here in the winter. We have book group, we do yoga (twice a week), we have dutch oven potluck suppers, senior dinners (twice a month, and yes, they let me slide on in though I'm too young to qualify), we do Tai Chi, Qi Gong, we run over to Escalante for booze and Georgie's Mexican food, you get the idea. And we chop lots of wood and hike in the brief winter sunlight. And we have impromptu parties. Chanda and Nathanael had one last night over in Salt Gulch.
A bit of Boulder geography: If Boulder were a city, Salt Gulch and the Draw would be the suburbs. They're both about a 15 to 20 minute drive from town. Enough distance over washboard roads that one can be lazy and say, ah, it's too far to drive tonight. Baaad knitter, no partay...
And we go to Winter Fire School over in St. George in mid-January. I'm a volunteer fire fighter here in Boulder and it's one of my most favorite and unexpected new skills. My admiration and respect for big city firefighters has gone up a thousand-fold since I've joined the fire company here. It's damned hard work.
And yes, Sheila, I'm finally getting over there to visit you in St. George! Wanna have some coffee? By mid-January I'll be desperate for a soy latte, fer shure.
So I'm slowly sliding back into the knitting. At book group last night, I picked up Veronik Avery's much-knitted Lace Ribbon Scarf from Knitty. It's a Christmas present so I need to give it some time and patience and just get it done. I'm not so wild about the colorway but the recipient is and that's all that matters. I'm using two vintage balls of Filatura di Crosa Zarina, color 5001.
I'ts got good yardage (181 yds/165m) and it's spring and soft and lovely to knit with. Not splitty at all. I would definitely seek it out again. In fact, I'd love to make a pair of socks out of it. But in another colorway. I am not so much with the orange and green and purple, heh. It's a stash buster and will nicely match the avocado and deep green sweater I've been commissioned to make by the same recipient. She doesn't know the scarf will come along for the ride.
What else is on the ridiculously ambitious knit-presents-for-Xmas list?
--A scarf/stole for Scotty of KnitPicks gossamer
--Several Colinette Parisienne (lovely mohair and silk) scarves
--A tank top for the mom (love those Miami winters)
--A hat or three for charity and karma
It's not the Harlot's list but it might as well be given my glacial knitting speed and devotion these days.
Oh, and did I mention finishing Mr. Purplejeans, the tab-buttoned cardi, and the Shibui stole for myself? Nothing like blind ambition, eh? Off to Escalante now...enjoy the winter light...
