All quite on the Eastern front

Not much crochet to share with you at the moment because the children (including the biggest kid, my husband) are home for the holidays so we have been getting together with family,

 opening presents,

getting out for fresh air, stunt scooting,

and eating our own body weight in satsumas.

All the making time I have had has been taken up with writing the pattern and making the sample for my magazine commission which obviously needs to be kept secret. And the maths, (oh, the maths!) has had me chewing my finger nails but it is now done I hope (the proof is in the sample) Thank goodness for Excel is all I can say. 

I have been very inspired by my Christmas present (from very kind, thoughtful and hint-taking husband)

Its a Japanese crochet stitch dictionary. Its all in Japanese but thanks to the wondrous international nature of the crochet chart system I can understand it. There are so many beautiful stitches to use with some very different ideas to any I have in my other stitch dictionaries. But this deserves its own post...once I've had some quality time with the book, some stash and a hook I will do a fulsome post on this fascinating book.