A gift and a sock

Fran gave me this delightful needle holder on Friday. It was a thank you for hosting the retreat where we all had a blast last weekend. It was a lot of work to make this and I treasure it and the friendship that inspired her generosity!

I knit a sock last week. Clare had given me this yarn in an enabling tactic to get me knitting and it worked...here is my sock and the beginning of its mate. I did try to knit the pattern that came with the yarn but got stymied on one of the directions. Of course it didn't help that I missed the second line of the explanation of the stitch but even when I realized that I was missing crucial information I did not know how to follow the directions...so I ripped the little bit I had done out and made a boring sock with no pattern in the stitches but I think the fabulous colour of the yarn makes up for it.

Winter visitors

I have three types of woodpeckers who visit here regularly. Below in a Hairy Woodpecker.

This one is a Red-bellied woodpecker, although his belly is not all that red, his head sure is.

The third kind are the little downies. I had a photo of one but it was impossible to see him so I'll just share the two. Very rarely we see a pileated woodpecker as well but they confine themselves to dead trees to peck out their food and shy away from human beings.

There are also myriad other birds...a pair of cardinals, many blue jays, nut hatches, finches and of course the chickadees.

Last Thursday we also saw a hawk high in one of the trees overlooking the back yard. He was huge and beautiful and I know hawks have to eat too but I wasn't so happy that he was considering my little feeder area as his very own smorgasbord. Beatrice has a picture of him on her blog.

Cheryl's fairy

We had a little stitching gathering at Fran's house on Monday. A good time was had by all! Cheryl had this beautiful fairy finished to show everyone. I had to share it with you!

Socks

I do not have much stitching to share because all my projects are moving very slowly, however before Christmas I did finish these socks.
I had started them many months ago and got hung up interpreting the directions for the heel. Fran was here one day before Christmas and explained it all to me and voila...a pair of socks!

Sharon's Huswif

I made one of Ellen Chester's Mrs Waddelow's Huswif patterns last year. Shaoron also stitched one but did not get it made up until recently. Here is hers....

Sharon even made the little needlebook to accompany the Huswif.
And this is a gorgeous ornament that she made for me. Isn't her work beautiful?