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photo: Lisanne & Bryce Thomas

How the heck did it get to be winter already?

I don't quite understand it, but it's cold outside and the calendar says December.

A minute ago, the leaves were just changing color and I was in a rented Buick, driving across eight states to meet tons of nice people and sign books and buy a honking huge bag's worth of silk and cotton handdyed yarn, a little from every stop.

Now all I can think about is if my winter coat is warm enough this year, or will it need fortification. [I decided it would and send thanks to the folks that invented polarfleece and breathable windblock.]

I've dug out the earmuffs and last year's mittens. And best of all, my small stash of handknit hats.

There's my favorite -- the one I knit for almost every female I knew in the late '80s and early '90s...the ribbed beanie from VK with the little knotted icord top, this one done in amy-dyed Bernat Gloucester cotton [dyed by me before there ever was an internet, mind you, with a box or two of RIT, of course, cause what else was there?].

There's the moss-stitch wonder with the cat-ear ties from that same issue of VK. This one was just knit three years ago when I rediscovered that same well-used magazine and realized that the cat-ear pattern was really cute and was perfectly suited to the stash of dyed Butterfly cotton I'd scored on sale at the LYS. I knit it for everyone that year, too.

And there's last year's addition -- knit in Paton's Canadiana, for heaven's sake, it's a lilac hat with my new favorite top finishing...take a tube with any sort of patterning or embellishment and do a 3-needle bind off to close it straight across. A pompom or tassel at each corner [there are two corners when you do it this way] and you have possibly the cutest hat ever. Knitting the squinchy acrylic on bamboo needles isn't something I look back on fondly, though. But an acrylic hat is a sturdy winter friend and it survives the cramming into my purse when I'm scrambling for the bus in the morning.

This is all just winterized rambling. I'm listening to Joni Mitchell as I write this, and -- no joke -- the song has just switched to "River". Couldn't be much more perfect.

So really, the point of all this rambling is just to welcome you back and wish you a happy, cozy, satsifying knitting season that you can look back on in years to come and remember with happiness and joy and peace.

Peace. We all could use a little more of that these days. Take care of yourself, and each other.