red riding hood

I am trying to do better blogging about projects as I finish them—I missed so many last year!— but I need to find a dedicated fashion photographer. Things just don't look that great lying on the floor, and there's only so many pictures I can take in a mirror or by holding the camera as far away from myself as possible. The problem is that getting someone around here to take the pictures in a spirit of cooperation and assistance is nigh on impossible. When I do manage to coerce someone into the task, I find that they have taken pictures of me with my eyes closed, or with the actual knitted item halfway out of the picture, or (true horror of horrors lately) focused on the skin of my chin/neck instead.

As payback compensation for the Ethiopian boondoggle, I forced Secondo to come outside yesterday and take a few pictures with what I hoped would turn out to be a lovely snowy backdrop. Instead he took many many pictures of me with the garbage can right behind me, all the while assuring me that the blue spruce was all that could be seen.

I was able to trim out the garbage cans for this project. It is a hooded scarf with cables that is perfect with my dress winter coat, which suffers from a lack of hood.

The buttons came from a great vintage button merchant who vends at the NJ Sheep and Wool Festival. I didn't have a project in mind when I picked these up, but I couldn't resist the different patterns.

You know that when your seven-year-old boy looks up (because he has the perfect perspective) and says, "Wow! Those are really pretty buttons!" that you have some winners.

Speaking of the seven-year-old boy, he managed to convince his father that his foot was well protected in a snow boot, and would suffer no harm from a sledding expedition to the golf course yesterday. He had received a super duper sled for Christmas that was burning a hole in his imagination.

The crew had a great time, and the sled met and exceeded all expectations, until this happened:

And then this, when he fell off the sled and went face-first down the icy slope:

The foot is doing just fine, but his face looks even worse today:

With the bruises and missing teeth (unrelated to sledding), he now looks like he went ten rounds with Tyson. We told him to tell anyone who asks at school tomorrow: "You shoulda seen the other guy." The fact that he is still limping will only add to the mystique.