It’s been a crazy week. It’s amazing how much of a creature of habit I have become so when my schedule gets mixed up and my routine is interrupted, it throws me all off course. I only have madness like this through the end of the month, so it’s nice to know that it’s only temporary.

I have been crafty lately, though. This morning, I mastered french knots! Can you believe it? Cross-stitching for like 20 years and I’m just now figuring out french knots. I have included some pictures that might help you decipher them, too, since others expressed their frustration with this technique. It sounds really easy: wrap the string around the needle a couple of times and re-insert it near where it came up and it magically forms a knot. Okay, so the key is in how you wrap it around the needle. This is how I was doing it. You can see that the needle is pointing upwards, toward the hole.

click to make it bigger

Basically, I was just wrapping it and pulling the string right through itself and I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t making a knot! 🙂 This is what I should have been doing all along. You may be able to see that the needle is pointing downwards, toward my hand and away from the hole. This is how a knot is formed!

I finished my first Christmas ornament! The rest should go much more quickly now that I’ve mastered french knots!

I have also been knitting. Click here to see my finished poncho on the wonderful model, my husband’s video gaming chair. I’ll try to take some outside “modeling” pics sometime soon, but it’s a rainy week here, so the weather has to clear up first. Hopefully, the rain is ushering in some cooler temperatures. That seems to be the case so far. Otherwise, I’m obsessed with one of my Christmas presents right now. I must finish it. It is making me crazy. I will probably be able to show you pics once it is finished since I don’t think it’s recipient reads the blog. Between now and then, think of me as I knit miles and miles of stockinette in hopes of getting at least one Christmas present out of the way.