Trees in two colors

I'm sitting here waiting for the chimney sweep to come and inspect our flue so that maybe we can light a warming fire tonight. It's bitter cold here and windy, desolate and bare really. All the greens and blues in grass and water are greyed out, and the wind has swept the world flat. I'm not a huge fan of this time of year, but the grey light of the short cold days does make for really good photographs of tree silhouettes.

For some reason I'm a little bit obsessed with the shapes of the trees, especially against a background of sky. It could be the elementary school art class where we were taught to draw nothing but (fairly realistic for an eight-year-old, I'll give the teacher that much) trees for weeks on end, but I think that there are few things more beautiful.

The two-color tree silhouette also inspired our Gocco-ed holiday card this year, a take on this photograph. I love how the red ink from the "peace" message sneaks up into the rest of the picture, more or less in certain prints -- it's the same way that I like to think of peace sneaking into my life, more or less on certain days.

Stay warm, friends.

Christmas Cobblestone

Since my husband was working so much this fall, I had plenty of time to work on this secret Christmas gift for him. It's Jared Flood's Cobblestone sweater, from the fall issue of Interweave Knits. I love how the fit is very streamlined, with the side garter-stitch panels and shoulder-hugging garter-stitch yoke.
I also love that the sweater was knit in the round, from the bottom up, so there was very little seaming involved. I think he likes it, only he might wish it was a little less orange. This yarn, Plymouth Tweed color 5313, is a little bit color-shifty in different lights.

And here's a photo to show what a good sport Brian was to model for me today. It was about 28 degrees this morning in the country and *windy*. This is what we wore for the weather and what Brian wished he could model today, instead of his thin-ish Christmas sweater-- look at the pup squinting his eyes in the wind.
P.S., I wish that I could capture a good photo of the capped waves that roll across the pond on a windy day like today -- it's really a sight to see the whole top of the water shift from north to south. Today we watched the white geese pushed swiftly across the surface as soon as they landed, and we followed the farm rule of "no riding horses when there are whitecaps visible from the barn".

Happy New Year! Be sure to eat some money.

So the end of 2007 got away from me, but here we are at the beginning of a whole new year. I wish you all health, happiness and luck in 2008. We're hoping that these collard greens (with cornmeal dumplings, yum), hoppin' john, and black-eyed peas (because apparently hoppin' john is always dry) will help to send good things our way this year.

These are all from recipes in the January 2008 issue of Gourmet, which pays homage to late Southern chef Edna Lewis. I tell you, her essay on "What is Southern?" made my mouth water and renewed my interest in the lives of Southern writers like Carson McCullers, Truman Capote and Thomas Wolfe. January may be the month of Southern food (and authors) at our house.

Grandmother Gnome

Another little gnomey today. It's still grey outside, but getting brighter as we march toward Christmas. Posting may be sparse this week as I head out of town to give this little one to my real Grandmother. Have a great week!

Snow day

It snowed all day today and is still snowing, but the flakes are small and it's not particularly cold so we only have about three inches' worth of accumulation. For some reason our teeny tiny camera (as opposed to the huge digital SLR) makes snow scenes a little blue. But the sky really was this grey, and I kind of love how this photo would have been changed not so much were it in black and white. It's winter. Don't you love those branches against the sky? And the pattern of snow on the magnolia?

Jingle Jolly

Preparations for Christmas continue apace. To brighten up the dining room, I made Happy Zombie's Jingle Jolly Runner over the weekend. I didn't do the best job with the binding on this one (it also hasn't yet had a trip through the washer and dryer to crinkle it up), but I was happy to make it almost entirely out of scraps (save the black polka dots in the centers of the stars).

I'm hoping that later this week it will make a nice soft landing spot for the advent wreath that I'm still working on finishing. Until then, the only advent wreath in the house is this miniature tree ornament one that my mom made, which lovingly recreates the full-sized wreath that we lit when I was a child. It's amazing! (I wish I could have gotten a better photo, but we've had another cold, grey day.)

And here, just for kicks, is a picture of the furry child on Thanksgiving, doing one of the things that he likes best (can you tell?). This photo serves double duty, showing as it does, one cute dog and the horse jump over which his human was thrown in the little flub that resulted in two cracked ribs. Fun, huh? P.S. It's taller than it looks!

Fall Quilt-along: Block 3

Boy, what a grey week. These blocks are my contribution for week 3 of crazy mom quilts' fall quilt-along. The grey skies and plummeting temperatures are definitely reflected in these photos-- it was tough to get any kind of true colors at all this week.