Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël! Happy December! (Whatever You're Into, We Wish You a Very Merry)

Bon Jour Again From the Riviera, Y'all,

I would like to wish every single one of you a super happy whatever you are into celebrating around this time of the year. And if you prefer hiding out from the holidays, holing up and knitting without all the blinking lights, and shopping madness (which is just how I like it) then I wish you great luck in your efforts to keep it on the down low.

Before I left town, I stopped by the store to check with Suzanne about some ideas for the blog, so that I could post while I'm over here in France. Actually, I could post every day about being here, and I could make it yarn related. For instance yesterday, I was at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-Sur-Mer (the ville where I am staying), and I saw a lovely painting of sheep. Then today, I was at the Musée Fransicain, a monastery/church in Nice, and I knelt down to check out the nativity scene, and there were still more sheep. But, most practically speaking, I have to tell you-- in all seriousness-- I have had sheep on the brain all day. Because it poured rain here and we don't have a rental car, just our feet, and the buses, and one umbrella apiece. And it is really, really cold. So out we set, in the pouring down, freezing rain, for a day in Nice. We walked and walked, got lost, walked some more, saw the Musée Matisse and the Musée Chagall (Chagall was more into painting goats than sheep), then walked some more. And the entire time, my feet stayed warm and dry, thanks to my homemade wool socks. And my inside layers of clothes stayed dry thanks to my Manos sweater jacket. And my head stayed warm courtesy of my Nashua hat. And my hands were toasty, too, because I made some booty-kicking Noro handwarmers.

Boy was I grateful to the sheep today. And to knitting.

Which brings me back to y'all. A few weeks ago, I wrote a Love Letter to Hill Country Weavers. Now, on behalf of Suzanne and everyone at the shop, allow me to write a love letter to y'all. Thank you so much for keeping the store thriving, even through what has been such a tough economic time for just about everyone. Thank you for signing up for so many classes, for hopping on the Cricket Craze, for welcoming warmly Brooklyn Tweed and Cookie A. And thank you, from me, personally, for reading this blog. I've been at it for about a year now, and regular readership is growing and I am just so digging being in regular touch. The store wouldn't be the store and the blog wouldn't be the blog without y'all. So thank you, thank you, merci beau coup from the bottom of our warm and woolly hearts.


I hope you get all your holiday knitting knocked out before midnight on the 24th. I'm going to try to wrap up a leg warmer tonight so I can get cranking on some socks tomorrow on the bus to Antibes (Whee! Oui! Zee Musee' Picasso!)

Oh, and about the pictures here (I mean, besides the Renoir painting) the knitted Christmas lights can be found in the book Christmas Knitting in Color by Nanette Blanchard - and the picture at the very top is of a massive knitted Christmas tree (the largest in the world), worked on by over 1000 knitters for The Eden Project a couple of years ago to raise cash for charity. Hey, if any of you want to come up with some massive HCW group knit project for 2010, count me in.

Au revoir!
Spiqueline