not so swift..

walnut jefferson franklin II, originally uploaded by alsoanno.

We went to Virginia for thanksgiving, the four of us and erin's boyfriend and the girl next door arrived in the star city of the south in the wee hours of thursday morning, dividing once we got there, 2 at my sister's house, 4 at my parents. We had a mostly fun generally enjoyable visit, met my sister's man-friend and his family and my nephew's fiance and her son for the first time, went to the star, had cheesy westerns at the texas tavern, wandered the market, voted on our favorite christmas tree in the contest at the hotel, enjoyed good company and headed home around noon on saturday. I haven't lived in roanoke since.. 1979, so when we were leaving the star on the mountain and heading for the texas tavern, I asked directions of my sister and she said go down the mountain on walnut, turn on jefferson, left on franklin, right on second to the church lot. To keep that in my head, I chanted Walnut Jefferson Franklin the Second at random intervals along the way. sounds like a name, right? well whatever.. it worked, we got there. :)

We detoured off the windy back way out of roanoke, to chop down a christmas tree.. a totally new experience for the 2 extras we had along so.. that was fun. We got the tree at Clark's christmas tree farm and last year (the first we'd brought a virginia tree back to south carolina), I named the tree Clark. :) This year I decided to name it Cornelius, because it had cones but the kids seemed to think I had already named a tree cornelius in the past so we were debating other names, and Harry was it's name for about half a minute til one of them tossed out Walnut Jefferson Franklin II.. which settled that, really that had to be it's name. and there he is, in all his glory.. the group all came together again last night, we had plenty of party foods and christmas carols, decorated WJFII, watched muppet christmas carol and then everybody went home. :)

WJFII is currently residing in the corner of the family room that usually is home to the rocking chair that serves as my "swift". The chair is still accessible but no longer in the room with the television and since I don't find winding yarn into balls to be the most entertaining task on my to do list, I had a sort of conversation with the sockknitters over the weekend, to come up with a good idea for a substitute. then.. I came up with my own solution. :)

so there, part of my cat collection and a candy jar nicely holding my yarn so I can wind it onto my orange-scented airfreshener can nostepinde while I watch bad movies on TV. :)

and as a downpayment on those promised sock photos..



a pair of brownish 3x1 rib mansocks, in yarn from the same cherry tree hill mill end you can see me winding more of, above. I have the first sock of a similar but plain stockinette pair done, and the ball I switched to after the heel on that one is sorta different colorwise than the first ball (which did these two socks), so I wound the rest, hoping it will be more similar to the first ball than the second.

and I think that's all you're going to get, today. :)