Today, December 13, is Saint Lucia Day. Lucia, an Italian saint, was an early Christian martyr. You can read about her here. Her saint day is celebrated in Sweden. You can read about the celebration here.

One of the traditions for Saint Lucia Day in Sweden (and for Swedes living in other countries) is to have a Lucia pageant. The young girl who portrays Lucia is dressed in a white gown with a red sash and wears a crown of lighted candles on her head. She is accompanied by other young girls dressed in white and little boys (star boys), each carrying a lighted candle. Lucia carries a tray of saffron rolls. They have a procession, during which they sing the traditional Lucia song:

Natten går tunga fjät
runt gård och stuva.
Kring jord, som sol’n förlät,
skuggorna ruva.
Då i vårt mörka hus
stiga med tända ljus
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.
Då i vårt mörka hus
stiga med tända ljus
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

Natten är stor och stum.
Nu hörs det svingar
i alla tysta rum
sus som av vingar.
Se på vår tröskel står
vitklädd, med ljus i hår
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.
Se på vår tröskel står
vitklädd, med ljus i hår
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

“Mörkret skall flykta snart
ur jordens dalar.”
Så hon ett underbart
ord till oss talar.
Dagen skall åter ny
stiga ur rosig sky.
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.
Dagen skall åter ny
stiga ur rosig sky.
Sankta Lucia, Sankta Lucia.

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this.

When I was a tiny tot (three years old) our church decided to have a Lucia pageant. I was chosen to be Lucia, most likely because I was a little blonde angel and my mother knew how to make the Lucia bread. Probably more of the latter than the former. Right before the pageant they stuffed me into the long white gown (recycled from my fairy princess costume for Halloween) and tied a red sash around my waist. I was handed the tray of Lucia rolls. The other children in my Sunday school class were dressed in white and given candles to hold. An evergreen wreath with candles was jammed down on my head. Okay, so far so good. Then one of the women stepped up with a box of matches.

My mother said, “Be careful! Don’t set her hair on fire!”

The rest of the pageant is a blur. I’m told I marched down the center aisle of the church in abject terror, wearing my crown of lit candles. Somewhere there’s an old photo of me standing at the front of my Sunday school class, holding the tray of Lucia bread, lit candles on my head, and an expression of primal fear frozen on my face.

Ah, childhood memories!

(Tales of Holiday Horror?)

In case you’re wondering, this is not what my family’s Christmas dinner scene looks like (link found by the ever-helpful Theresa – thanks!).

Happy Saint Lucia Day everyone!

And you get a bonus for reading through all that and getting to this point. Could it be?

Yes!

More Old Knitted Crap!

This is another one that’s already on my website, but the photo is a small and not very clear one. Pre-digital camera! I had a request for a better photo of this yesterday.

This is the Alice Starmore design “Wave Cardigan” from her Fair Isle Knitting book. This is possibly the first fair isle I ever did. I think it is. I opted not to put the pockets in it because I’m not fond of pockets.

I used Harrisville shetland and think I did a pretty good job of matching up colors, eh?

Here’s a close-up:

Geane, this one’s for you!

Fulmar . . .

Yep, finished the first sleeve except for the shoulder strap. I’ll do that this weekend. I started the second sleeve and am on the cuff. Izzy supervised:

Holiday Contest

Don’t forget, your contest entries are due by 3:00pm EST today. If you haven’t entered but want to, do so now! We’ll be drawing a winner tonight.

Is it just me?

Am I the only woman in the world who thinks the ads with the Joe Boxer guy are just plain creepy?

Happy weekend everyone!

And I’m still knitting away at Fulmar. Ooh! Ooh! Update pic:

It’s progressing — looks like I’ll have the first sleeve done by the weekend. And hopefully early next week there’ll be a pictorial on my website about knitting the shoulder strap onto the body of a sweater. Maybe on Tuesday.

Izzy continues to help:

I Love Knitter’s Review!

If you’ve never been there, please do check out Knitter’s Review. It’s an online magazine, a discussion forum, and more. Including a boutique. I just got my holiday cards I ordered from the Knitter’s Review boutique in the mail yesterday and they’re lovely. Gonna write some cards today. There’s lots of other great stuff there, including a 2003 “Year in Yarn” calendar. Too cute!

Old Stuff

A departure today: Not old knitted stuff. Though I do still have more old knitted stuff! Click here to check it out.

That’s my little tiny Christmas tree. The old stuff I’m talking about is my collection of felt ornaments. I made all those little suckers about ten years ago. I bought some kits to make them. All the kits said “fast and easy to make.” I’m here to tell you that those little bastards were neither fast nor easy to make. They were difficult and time-consuming. But they are cute, so it was worth the bother.

The moral of the story: don’t believe everything you read on a crafts kit!

There’s freezing rain falling and the temperature is right at freezing. I am not looking forward to commuting this morning, though I think close in to the city, where I am, the roads aren’t icy yet. So it could be worse.

But on to more important things!

First, guess what I got in the mail yesterday?

My trade items from Amy!

Amy made me some very cool marble magnets and here they are:

Believe me, the photo does not do them justice. They are so much cuter in person. In person? In magnet?

And if that wasn’t enough, these were also in the package:

When I dumped them out on the table in a rush of giddy greediness I flashed back to when I was a little kid dumping my Halloween bag out after a night of trick or treating.

It was all I could do to keep from sticking my snout right in there and inhaling a bar or two, but I showed what I think is great restraint. I’m saving them for Christmas and I might even share.

Amy, thanks! You’re fabulous!

Fulmar

The obligatory update photo:

I’m plugging away on the first sleeve. I really want to finish it and start the next one this weekend. We’ll see.

Izzy

And the obligatory Izzy photo. She’s striking a seductive pose for you all.

Note: Please ignore the gawdawful rug she’s lying on. It’s a horrendous cowboy boot rug that was given to me as a gift. I put it in my entryway a few weeks ago as a joke when a friend who’s from Texas was coming over. And never put it away again. Yeah, I’m lazy like that.

And I jump every time I see it.

Old Stuff

Once again I’m cheating, as this is on my website. But Lindsey-Brooke reminded me of these gloves yesterday:

These are called the “Dales Gloves” and are a replica of a museum piece, originally knitted in the 1800s by a Yorkshire Dales knitter named Mary Allen, if my memjory serves me. They came in a kit I bought from Schoolhouse Press 9 years ago, and I think the wool is Rowan Botany — fingering weight. I know I knitted them in 1993 because I knitted the year above the cuffs.

Holiday Contest

All I can say is . . . wow. You guys continue to amaze me. It’s definitely an ego-stroke to have received the overwhelming number of entries I’ve gotten so far, with amazingly accurate answers. And here I thought I might have made it too tough. I should have known better! As I said yesterday, it’s reached the point where I can’t answer each email personally, but please don’t let that stop you from entering.

By the way, I am delighted to receive so many entries from lurkers who I’ve never heard from before but who are faithful blog readers. Thanks for taking the time to write, and thanks for your introductions. It’s great to meet you all.

Friday night I will have an impartial party (no it won’t be Izzy) draw a name from the many of you who got a perfect score. The winner shall be named on Monday.

If you’ve stuck with me this long and have read through all that . . .

Have a great day! If there’s ice where you are, be careful. I’m off to slide my way into work.

You guys are amazing!

I started by answering every email entry that came in but I’ve given up. I can’t keep up. Please accept my apologies if I don’t reply personally to your entry. Needless to say I’ll be drawing a name for the prize, so keep those entries coming in!

Thanks for playing. Mwhaa!

A Holiday Contest!

I’d like to be able to send all of my loyal blog readers and online buddies a special holiday gift. Because I can’t, I’m offering this holiday contest as a little bit of fun.

Behold this lovely collage of some of my completed work.

Can you figure out what all those designs are? There are swatches from 21 different knitted items in the picture — 11 on the top row, 10 on the bottom. The individual who can correctly name the most by 3:00pm Friday (EST) wins a fabulous prize! In the event of a tie, I’ll draw a name.

Here’s a hint — each little swatch was taken from a photo somewhere on my website.

To enter, please email me. Please do not submit entries in my comments or tag-board cuz you don’t want other people to be able to see your entry and glean info from it for their entries, right?

What’s the fabulous prize? Ten 100gram (190 yards each) hanks of Handsome Harry’s Hanks worsted spun wool in a glorious dark turquoise. Lookie!:

This is worsted weight wool (size US 8 needle approximately). There’s enough here to make a long sleeve pullover. It’s been stored in plastic in my moth-free home. Contest is open to everyone, everywhere. No restrictions apply. Mail me your entry soon!

Fulmar Sleeve

Working away on my Fulmar sleeve. As I mentioned in my comments yesterday, I’m not doing the increases as directed in the pattern. The pattern tells you to increase one stitch on each side every third row x number of times, then every fourth row x number of times. I’m increasing every third row til I reach the total number of stitches required. Someone on some list somewhere mentioned recently that she prefers to have all the sleeve increases pretty much completed by the time you reach the elbow. I agree. I always do this.

As you can see, Izzy is holding on to my next ball of wool until I need it.

And . . . can you stand it?

More Old Knitted Crap™!

This is a Norwegian-type sweater that I sort of made up. I used some charts from the Nordic Knitting book by Susanne Pagoldh, but I can’t tell you how closely I followed a pattern because I’ve mislaid the book.

The wool is from Schoolhouse Press — this much I do remember. It’s their Quebecoise wool.