I am Rachel, call me Lame.

Happy New Year. All the best hopes and wishes for every one of you, domestically, nationally, and internationally.

I've been supremely lame with this blog lately and no mistake. One of my New Year's resolutions is to be better about blogging and keeping up with long-suffering friends (Bettina, I'm talking to you). I've had to keep my mouth shut on a lot of stuff, and i think that was part of what gave me some blogger's block.

But still, I did have plenty to chat about, so I'm sorry I dropped off the map so abruptly.

At any rate, now that the holidaze are over I can kick my ass into gear and get back on the blogging/job-hunting train. I've got a couple irons in the fire re: jobs, but wanna keep quiet on the web for obvious reasons. Will tell a couple of sagas once I'm gainfully employed, I promise.

In the meantime I did a crapload of knitting for Christmas presents, most of which came out well. One hat for a brother-in-law is too small, but I'm hoping it'll be expanded enough to fit his head when I block it. Fingers crossed. All in all I knitted:

2 pairs of cable mitts (my pattern)
2 hats (Habitat pattern from Jared Flood, knits up great)
3 scarves (2 Noro ribbed scarves [I used Jared Flood's version], one lace scarf, my pattern)
1 stuffed toy dog--for my niece from the book World of Knitted Toys by Kath Dalmeny. At least, it's supposed to be a dog--looks more like a mouse. But more importantly it'll stand up to a fair amount of drool and pulling.

I also made one pair of earrings, 3 necklaces (most of which I still need to mail out), and a bottle of strawberry vodka (I marinated it--didn't distill the vodka itself--I'm not that much of a nutcase).

I'll post some pix as they come available. Here's one of the "dog":



Gotta say, it's been a watershed time for me creatively. A lot of my design ideas have been panning out, which feels really good. But for now I'm working on a sweater Interweave Magazine, the Tangled Yoke Cardigan, just to give my knitting brain a chance to recharge. I'm taking the yarn from a sweater I knitted ages ago and never wear. Gotta love recycled yarn.