I've heard of planning ahead for Christmas, but this is ridiculous

Elizabethan Jacket for MIL

I can't stop working on this! I've just started another great new project, and yet, my hands still keep taking this out of the bag to work on. I suspect a large part of the reason for this is that the suspense of whether there will be enough red yarn to complete it is driving me nuts. I MUST know...and the only way to find out is to knit and knit until either the red or the cardigan is finished. Which is really quite insane, when you think about it. How many people have you ever heard of who get a major piece of Christmas knitting done by, say, February? I'm a freak!

But...I'm a freak with a really gorgeous WIP:


Carrie K caved to the pressure of all this loveliness and asked where she could get the pattern. :) (Muahahaha.) This is a Jade Starmore design, from her book "A Collector's Item". You can't get this off-the-shelf from any of the big online booksellers, but eBay has it sometimes. However, after missing out on several of those auctions, I finally thought, 'screw it', and ordered my copy directly from the Starmore site. I think my total cost with shipping and exchange and everything was about $65, and that was back when the exchange rate sucked a lot harder for us Canadians. So it wouldn't be so pricey for you, Carrie. Plus, there are a lot more awesome patterns in the book than just this one. To be honest, if this book is any indication, I believe Jade actually surpasses her mom for design genius. Her concepts are more modern, and she throws in more variety and new ideas, not just in terms of motifs, but also in terms of cut and style. The Persian Tiles shawl I made for my grandma is also from that book. So if you buy it, prepare to be stunned (in a good way). Honestly, I can only think of one design off the top of my head that I don't want to make from that book - I'm pretty sure that everything else in there is on my list of 'projects to complete before I die'.

Peacock Feathers Shawl for Mom

The yarn is lovely, the design is absolutely gorgeous, and the work is easy. Unfortunately, the knitting is kind of mind-numbingly repetitive right now. I'm in the middle motif, which consists of an eight-row repeat that just keeps going and going over increasingly bigger rows.

So, while the outcome continues to be lovely...


...the process is starting to wear a little thin. However, I do keep at it. It makes for very good subway knitting.

Back on track

Had the usual good time at the SnB on Wednesday night. Good company, good knitting, and my burgeoning belly was admired (and, in some cases, noticed for the first time). I'm starting to fret a little bit about how I'm going to keep going to these things when I'm on mat leave. Right now, it's just a short jaunt from work on a Wednesday evening, and then public transportation home when I'm done. Coming down from and then back up to the boonies where I live, however, is another matter, especially with a baby in the house. But I expect I will just need to take the car and my stubborn determination (and the baby, too).

Peacock Feathers Shawl for Mom

The reason I chose this week to get out to Knit Night was that the pattern for this project had arrived! I made sure to bring the yarn and needles needed for the project, then snapped the pattern up as soon as I got there, and cast on.

As always, Dorothy Siemens' patterns are not only beautiful, but extremely clear and easy to follow, and the charts are big. Moreover, the lambswool/camel down blend of yarn that I'm using is really lovely to work with. It's a good piece of knitting, this is.



And here's where I am now - 100 rows into it. This means, according to the shawl progress calculator from Rose-Kim Knits, that I'm 20% done the body. And that means that, at last, I have finished the task for the first week of this year's Schedule. Hooray!

Arabesque baby blanket for Alex Mendez

Happily, Amy was at the SnB on Wednesday, so I got to ask her (hopefully in a tactful, non-bugging kind of way) if she'd received the submission of this pattern for Knitty. She had indeed, and told me that she was unfortunately unable to use it. I was kind of surprised, since I'd submitted a baby blanket pattern on purpose, figuring it would be a great idea, since you hardly ever see blankets in Knitty. However, Amy let me know that this 'blanket dearth' is intentional, since a blanket is really just a rectangle (or a square), and anyone can go just about anywhere to pick up a blanket pattern. For Knitty to take a blanket pattern, it needs to have a real 'hook', something which makes it really unique and stand-out-ish, like The Hoover Blanket (a historical recreation), or Lizard Ridge (incredibly funky, and which takes advantage of the cool properties of a specific kind of yarn).

While this news naturally kinda sucked from my point of view, you have to admit, it really is great that Amy has such a strong vision for her magazine. She certainly doesn't slap just anything up there. I suspect this is one of the big reasons it has such a following.

So, I'll see what else I want to do with this pattern. I have to admit that, even if I submit it elsewhere and it's accepted, re-knitting it in a nice yarn for publication really isn't the sort of thing I have the time to do right now. So I might just make it available for free here and see whether anyone likes it. But I'm still a bit undecided, so stay tuned.

Elizabethan Jacket for MIL

I brought this out for a little bit during the SnB just for a little variety during the evening, and it definitely got noticed. (I can say that without worrying that I'm coming across immodestly, since it's the pattern that makes it so incredible, and I didn't design the pattern. I just do as I'm instructed...when I'm not screwing it all up, of course.) I also got some suggestions on how I could maybemaybe make the red yarn stretch far enough. Denny brought up the idea of 3/4 sleeves and a deeper neck. She pointed out that these might actually be desireable features since the stranding across the back of the work is going to make the cardigan super-hot...shorter sleeves and a deeper neckline might be the only way the wearer can stand it without melting. :) Another suggestion (which I think Megan made) is to do the red just for the body. I will certainly consider all these ideas, especially since it's looking more and more like I am really screwed, red-wise, despite Carrie K's assurances. I shall thank her, however, for that vote of confidence, by respecting her resolution to "Not.Look.For.It.Online.", and NOT telling her how to get the pattern. (But if you ever change your mind, lady, let me know. :)

However, aside from that, it's coming along very nicely. I'm getting close to the bottom of the armscyes. These will also have to be steeked. And I find I can bear the knowledge of more steeking to come with great fortitude. The lack of having to weave in ends for colour changes, in kelpkim's words, is certainly "GREAT!!!" More and more, I think whoever invented the concept was not a sadist, but actually a freakin' genius. So, on Wednesday night, when Fibersnob fretted out loud about the upcoming steeking she's going to have to do for an absolutely GORGEOUS baby cardigan she's working on, I was able to reassure her with great confidence and authority. Hopefully it helped.

Yes, I do read my comments

And I love them! Unfortunately, I'm not always the best at responding to them immediately, and that's how we end up with a huge backlog of comments responses in a single blog post...

Firstly, thank you everybody who wrote with compliments on the recently-finished projects. I'm very, very happy with everything I've been able to accomplish in the last few months - it's been a nice change from the fall when I couldn't stand to pick up the knitting at all.

Particular thanks to those of you who complimented me not only on the cardigan I knitted for my daughter, but her cuteness as well. :) I'm not sure where that sheepish/embarrassed expression came from...she unfortunately has developed a habit of mugging for the camera with a super-cheezy and not-at-all-genuine smile, so I was trying to make her laugh and be a bit more natural. That's what came out. I thought it was great, even though you can't see much of her face in the shot.

Naturally, I've been enjoying all the Christmas knitting gifts you guys congratulated me on. Unfortunately, the ear lamp that Charalynne M. liked has run into a bit of a snag. The problem is that the button needs only a faint touch to turn on. I've tried storing it in a part of my bag that is shaped, roomy, and mostly empty so that there will be no pressure applied to the button as I haul it around, but unfortunately I keep going into the pocket and finding the light already on. (Grr.) As a result, the beam is now weak almost to the point of uselessness, and I need to get a new battery. And also some kind of box to store the light in so this doesn't happen again. (I am hoping against hope that I don't also need to get a new bulb since it's a halogen and I have no idea where I could get a replacement.)

I also got comments about my 'weird things about me' meme, particularly the bellybutton thing. Which brings up an interesting incident from today - I had my first appointment with my backup midwife, and she asked about my scar. When I told her where it was from, she thought it was tremendously cool. Oemphalocile is a congenital defect, so she's seen plenty of babies with the problem, but never an all-healed-up grownup. It's times like these that I remember I'm a bit of a conversation piece. However, many of you think that my lack of bellybutton is a clear indication that I am a clone. I would like to go on record right now as denying this. It's just not true. No, really. The prevailing theory among many of my friends is actually that I'm a faerie. (Yes. Much more mystical and intriguing than that clone thing.) However, Tanya also has a point - I am a Muppet. (You have to watch me talk animatedly to really understand how this is possible.)

Gill, of course, having known me since I was seven, was already aware of the bellybutton thing (and would probably agree with Tanya on the Muppet theory). However, something I didn't know about her was that she also sloshes! How relieving to hear that I'm not the only one. (And WELL do I remember those agendas, by the way. I don't even want to think about how many times "Russell Johnson" appears instead of the homework assignments I was supposed to have been writing down.)

Ella offered the suggestion that I could be one of those people that drains the life force from watch batteries. I have actually heard of this phenomenon...it's certainly possible that I am afflicted with this problem. I think I might just take her suggestion and Google it. Who knows...maybe there's a cure. Maybe I just need more beets in my diet or something...

In response to the descriptions of my forays into genealogical research, some of you regaled me with very interesting stories from your own heritages - thank you! The five additional certificates I ordered came in and they contained some verrry interesting information that I can probably take further once I have the cash to pay for some really good research access. I keep having to tell myself that this will happen eventually and that the past is not going anywhere while I wait.

Anyway, back to more knitting-related content...

Nikeroo saw the finished shots of my MIL's Garden Shawl and asked how I "manage to spend so much time making something so beautiful and not go stir crazy?" Answer: I'm not sure. Part of it was probably having so many different other projects to fall back on when things got tough. Because there was a lot of it that was definitely crazy-making, ESPECIALLY the interminable edging. But mostly it was really fascinating watching all the motifs take shape, and getting more and more excited about how fantastic the finished product was going to look. Also, there's not much else to do on an 80-minute commute.

Aven, I hope we bump into each other at a SnB soon, too. Maybe tomorrow? The Peacock Feathers Shawl pattern I ordered came in late last week and I'm totally going to be there.

And I agree with Carrie K that my DH has a great attitude towards knitting. We should all be so fearless - the learning curves would be steeper, yes, but the knowledge and experience gained would be immense.

Alright! Enough with the comments responses already! Have I actually been knitting this week, you may ask? Answer: Hell, yes.

Elizabethan Jacket for MIL

Carrie K confirmed my 'good daughter-in-law' status and boggled at the fact that I was doing Christmas presents already. Yes, I am just that sick and twisted. Sorry. :)

Anyway...this is still my new favourite project. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out why:


I'm so enamoured of it that I am even willing to show you the reverse side:


Unfortunately, all is not perfect in Newfavouriteprojectland. For one thing, I screwed up more times than I care to count on the dart pattern. Let's just say there will be a fair amount of duplicate stitching to correct things. As well, I completely missed the part of the instructions which told me to work 5 additional rows after doing all the dart decreases, and then pleat the darts. Yep, you guessed it - instead, I pleated the darts immediately after I finished the decreases. Four to six rows later, I finally read that fateful instruction and...frogged the whole thing back. Couldn't avoid it - my mistake was very likely to result in a structural change to how the darts functioned. Bleah.

As well, I have this problem:


The skein on the bottom is about how big the skein on the top was when I started. And I have about half the body and two sleeves left to go. I am so screwed.

However, on the upside, I am absolutely gleeful over the fact that all the billions of ends resulting from the colour changes happen in the middle of the steeks, which means there will be NO NEED TO WEAVE THEM ALL IN! Muahahahahaha!

Now, if only I could be assured that I won't run out of the red...

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD

Thank you so much, Mel...she suggested I try to get some more of the yarn I need for this project from Wool-Tyme. I don't think I'd ever heard of these people before, but you can bet I have it bookmarked now! Unfortunately, they don't sell Plymouth stuff, but it's still great to know about them. However, the biggest shout-out goes to Trico, who de-lurked to call my attention to the Sockotta sale page at Yarn Discontinued, which I am almost POSITIVE is the place where I thought I'd seen the Sockotta on sale! You doll, you, thank you so much! Unfortunately, none of the colours on sale are the ones I need, but at least I can put that ghost of "I know I saw it somewhere" to rest. Merci.

Unfortunately, all this means I am still short the yarn I need for this project, but I can't tell you how appreciative I am for the help. You guys rock.

Oh, for a lottery win

Christmas 2007 gift for MIL

In the absence of my Peacock Feathers Shawl pattern (although the shop tells me it's coming soon and, if I'm really lucky, it'll be there by tonight so I can go to the SnB), and given that DH's Christmas present is racing rapidly towards the finish line, I figured it was time to turn my Schedule-obsessed attention towards something else for a while. Specifically, to my MIL's Christmas present. (Never say I don't think ahead.)

The problem here is not a lack of ideas. Heavens, no. Ideas and inspiration I have tons of, enough to last for years. Projects like...


Alice Starmore's Mary Tudor cardigan


Helen Hamann's Lliclla wrap (drooool)


Elsebeth Lavold's Emma jacket


Anne Feitelson's Sandwater Jumper

And Hanne Falkenburg's Mermaid blazer (ivory/sand mix/dove colourway). To name some top contenders.

(Incidentally, just to toot my own horn, am I not the best daughter-in-law EVER?)

All of these would suit my MIL bee-yew-tifully and would deliciously satisfy my penchant for advanced projects. (Well, okay, the Lliclla wrap doesn't look like a big deal, but the payoff of an absolutely glorious finished product would more than make up for that.) The problem is...budget.

Bleargh. Money (or the lack thereof) raises its ugly head again. Fact is, our Christmas budget is about $500, and it's used to buy presents for 10 or 11 people. For my individual gift from me to my MIL, therefore, I have a limit of about $25-30. Now, sometimes we do pool both DH's and my gift money for one person in order to buy them one big thing. However, as DH pointed out (as I was trying to convince him that we should use this strategy so I could afford the 400g of Peruvian Highland Wool I'd need for the Lliclla wrap), a handknitted gift to someone is going to be perceived primarily as a gift from ME, no matter who else's name may be on the tag under the "From:" heading. And, sadly, he's right.

Thus I was left with no real alternative but to stash-dive.

What I found that got the creative juices flowing again was a bunch of New Zealand wool that I had bought a few years ago in various gauges and colours from a very nice eBay seller. And I began to think about another contender...


Jade Starmore's Elizabethan Jacket

I chose three colours that seemed to work well together and that would suit my MIL (cream, sage, and red), and swatched. I realised on the first swatch that there were two main problems. Firstly, the red was far too prominent. It's sort of an orangey-red, but it has enough of a blue undertone to not be completely suitable to my MIL's colouring (she's a redhead). So I wanted the cream-and-sage striping to be dominant, and in the first swatch, it just wasn't. Secondly, the swatch was a touch too big for gauge.

So I made some changes. Firstly, I went down a needle size to 3mm. And secondly, I reversed the colourway: instead of the background being a single colour and the main pattern being striped, I made the main pattern solid (red) and the background striped (cream and sage). Behold the result:



I like it. And I'm pretty close to gauge, too. I'm sure I can block it out to the right measurements. (No, I haven't washed the swatch. What can I say - I've used the yarn before, so I've got a good idea of how much 'bloom' I'll be dealing with; plus, I like to live on the edge.) The yarn should bind together with the steeking, and I'm pretty sure I have enough of each colour. (I know, I know, again with the living on the edge...I haven't actually weighed all the yarn to make sure I have enough. But it seems like enough. Oh, stop rolling your eyes at me. If it doesn't work out, you have the right to mock openly.)

So, Monday I cast on. And now...


It's my new favourite project.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Sweater for DH

Armhole shaping on the front is complete. I'm now working up towards the beginning of the neck shaping.

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD

So I called the LYS where my MIL bought the yarn, to see if they still had any left in the same dyelot. Nope. They don't even have the same YARN any more. A thousand curses.

Now here's the thing...I'm almost positive that I saw Sockotta on sale online SOMEWHERE within the last two or three weeks. I just can't remember where. I thought it was Yarn Forward, but I checked, and...no. Maybe WEBS? Nope. Elann? Nuh-uh.

Of course, even if I could find the place I saw the sale, there's no guarantee that the dyelot of the new ball will match closely with what I've got now.

Sigh.

So I've put this project away for a little bit. I need to regroup.

Digging for roots

So it's been almost a week since my last blog post. Lest you all think I've reverted to those anti-knitting feelings of my first trimester, let me reassure you. I have actually been knitting quite a bit (more about that in a moment). However, I have also been gripped by the rediscovery of another obsession...genealogy.

See, here's the thing...over the holidays, the mother of my niece sent me an invitation to a three-day free trial at ancestry.com, so that I could search and view scans of cool things like census records, birth registers, etc. I accepted the offer and spent a few days gleefully doing searches of my husband's ancestors. (Why my husband's ancestors and not mine, you may ask? Well, searches for my own ancestors typically turn up BUBKUS. Unsurprising, really, since on my mom's side we're Christian Arabs in Lebanon and Syria, and on my dad's side we're Eastern European Jews. Basically, a genealogical records wasteland all-round. Whereas my husband's ancestry is mostly English and Irish, where there are vital records a-plenty.) I had enough successful 'hits' doing this to get completely and utterly hooked, and since then I've been back on the genealogy bandwagon.

Admittedly, the bandwagon would be easier to drive if my free trial hadn't expired, but I've still been able to do little bits here and there. Most exciting is the fact that I've been able to order birth, marriage and death certificates from the General Register of England. UNBELIEVABLY cool, that. I started with the birth and marriage certificates of one of DH's great-grandmothers and then could not resist ordering some more to keep uncovering more ancestors. (Don't tell my husband I've ordered five more certificates...I haven't figured out how to pay for them yet!)

So this is what I've been doing with my nights this past week, instead of blogging about my knitting progress. However, since I have kind of hit a research wall at the moment (despite DH's discovery tonight of ancestorsonboard.com - unfortunately, it doesn't yet have records for the time period I'm interested in), and since I'm still waiting for those five certificates to show up on my doorstep, back we go to blogging.

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD

I knitted to the halfway point of the shrug (i.e. one sleeve plus half of the prescribed width of the back), and then started weighing yarn. On the half-shrug was about 52g of yarn. Left in the ball was about 43g of yarn.

Screwed. As I suspected.

Just to confirm exactly how well and truly I was screwed, I started winding up what yarn I had left in the ball, counting very precisely how many more colour stripes I had left to go. (This is one of the advantages of self-striping yarn - if you wind up the remaining yarn and count the number of dye pattern repeats, then compare it to what you've already knitted, you will know precisely how much more knitting you can get out of the remaining yarn.)

Result: I was short of another half-shrug by exactly six stripes.

DH recommended that I rip the shrug back to the start of the back, and redo it with fewer stitches. Now, I am not really familiar with the three-dimensional physics of shrugs, but my instincts told me that this would result in a really dumbass-looking article of clothing. So, no.

I was starting to think about whether my daughter would appreciate a shrug with 3/4 sleeves when my dad (I was at my parents' place at the time) suggested that I rip the shrug back to the point where I'd used up half the yarn, then knit another almost-half shrug, and then somehow join them at the back. He mentioned grommets - I had visions of a shrug joined at the back with elaborate ribbon criss-crossings and started to think about how that could be possible, given that I also needed to do a ribbed edging all around the shrug opening. (Using some other kind of yarn, of course.)

And then...it hit me.

I will fill in the missing inch-and-a-half or so down the middle of the shrug's back with a strip worked perpendicularly to the two pieces of the shrug's back...just like a shoulder strap on a gansey. That will still let me do the ribbed edging all around the shrug opening, which I will do in the same yarn (which I will have to buy) as the inch-and-a-half wide strip. And the strip will be worked in some kind of nifty cable pattern that I haven't figured out yet.

I shall go to all this trouble because, dammit, this yarn needs to be made into a shrug for my kid. The colours suit her perfectly and will bring out the colour of her eyes. I will go to great lengths to make this shrug out of this yarn happen for her. It shouldn't be too hard to find a small ball of complimentary cotton/wool sock yarn to use for the strip and the edging. Right?

Although...now that I've typed that...I suppose another alternative would be to get a second ball of the striping sock yarn and make Baby Legs out of the leftovers.

Damn. Now I'm all undecided.

Although I suspect the decision will be made for me when I am unable to find the self-striping yarn in the same dyelot.

Hm.

Oh, well, I'll figure it out later. In the meantime, here's what I've got so far...

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Sweater for DH

Back is finished:


Front is over half done:


I still can't believe I'm going so fast.

(I also can't believe what a mess the alpaca yarn made of my jet-black blazer today. Yowza. Fluffy bits everywhere. Très sharp and professional, I tell ya.)

(I swear I will start responding to all the wonderful comments I've been getting very soon. I particularly want to address all these clone rumours. :)

So I'm weird

Alright, at last I have gotten off my heinie and come up with some stuff for the 'six weird things about me' meme. Some of them are lame, I'll admit - I'm positive there's stuff about me that's far more weird than some of the things on this list, but I can't seem to think of any of them right now.

1. Once I've had a drink, if I jump/bounce/wiggle, you can hear the water sloshing and glurgling around inside me. I thought this was normal until I met my husband, who had never heard of such a thing. Even better? My daughter inherited this trait from me. Oh, joy.
   
   
2. I don't have a bellybutton. I've never had a bellybutton. This is why.
   
   
3. I eat my pizza crusts-first. This is because I like to save the best part (CHEESE!) for last. My daughter never fails to point out that I eat pizza strangely whenever we're having it for dinner. ("I eat my pizza like this," she tells me, turning it crusts-last.)
   
   
4. Although I like chocolate itself, I don't like things made out of chocolate - cakes, cookies, drinks, ice cream, etc.
   
   
5. I am the anti-watch. For the last 5 years or so, I have been without a watch on my wrist most of the time because something has happened to every watch I've had. The really nice James Bond-branded Swatch watch that I got as a freebie from work...the battery died. (I would like to add that every other single person in my department also got one of these watches, and they're still ticking. Coincidence? I think not.) My parents got me a beautiful custom watch with a picture of me kissing my daughter on the face. About two months later, again, the battery died. (Yes, yes, I know I can go and get a jeweller to replace watch batteries for a pittance. I just haven't gotten around to it yet, that's all.) Out of guilt, my parents got me a watch when they were in South Carolina on vacation a few months ago...turned out it was a bracelet-style watch instead of a strap-style watch and was waaaaaay too big for me. And so on. My husband remains appalled at a) the number of watches I've gone through and b) the fact that I never have any idea what time it is.
   
   
6. Sometimes things will tickle my funny bone so much that I will go off on a really long and hard laughing jag, like 10 minutes. Again, this was a facet of me that I thought was totally normal until the first time my husband set me off like this. He honestly thought I was having some sort of seizure, and got a little scared, until he realised it was just uncontrollable mirth. The kicker is that usually the things which get me going with a big, long laugh aren't even that funny, generally speaking.

I don't tag others with memes. But if you feel like doing this yourself, consider yourself tagged.

Ljod cardigan for moi

And now...a picture:

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD

Wednesday night, DH and I polished off our suppers before DD, so I told her I was going to go to the basement and do laundry while she finished eating.

"But Mummy," she said, "can you knit at the table with me and THEN go do laundry?"

Well. Twist my arm, eh? I completely abandoned the laundry plan and brought the shrug project out instead. At that point, there were 70 stitches on the sleeve, and I tried it on her arm: pretty darn tight. So I kept knitting and increasing until I had 74 stitches, and tried it again: not bad, but it could really do with some more ease. Last night I got to 76 and tried it on her again this morning: still not quite loose enough for my taste. But I think I'll have to stop at 78 or I won't have a hope in hell of finishing this thing with just the one ball of yarn. (As it is, I'm probably completely screwed already. But time and more knitting will tell.)

Naturally, she's really curious about what I could be making, but I'm trying to keep her in the dark as much as possible to retain a bit of the element of surprise.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Sweater for DH

At last! Something inline with The Schedule!

Well, to be honest, this week The Schedule says I'm supposed to start the Peacock Feathers Shawl for my mom. However, since I don't have the pattern (I ordered it, but it hasn't come in yet), starting it would be quite difficult. :) So, I'm fast-forwarding to what I have to do next week instead.

Therefore, the new goal for this week is to get half of the back of the Larry's sweater finished. Happily, I reached this goal at lunch yesterday.


Back of the sweater as of last night

Don't be too impressed with my speed, though - I'd already had about six inches done when I started back in on it on Tuesday. Still, I'm working through it pretty fast. And the yarn is really, really heavenly - sooo deliciously soft as it flows through my fingers. The weird thing, though, is that with my Ljod cardigan project, I get more tactile pleasure out of the yarn when I knit it English style. However, with this sweater, I get more tactile pleasure out of the yarn when I knit it continental style. This doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm not going to think too hard about it. Whatever makes my hands happy, I'll go with that.

Seatbelt redux

And now - back to regular blogging (i.e. adding some real content instead of just frantic project updates).

On the 27th, we went over to my parents' place for a mini Christmas dinner-slash-gift exchange.

This is an ear lamp (shown here turned on), with a halogen bulb. You hook it over your ear, press the button, and a nice little beam of light comes out to illuminate whatever is in front of you. The lamp swivels back and forth, too, so you can aim it a little bit. I LOVE it. I figure, if you want to be able to knit in the dark, why get light-up knitting needles in all the sizes you might need when you can just buy this one teeny gadget instead? It works like a dream, even if you wear glasses (like me). The only problem is that when I use it on the way home from my parents' place at night, it keeps my daughter (who sits beside me in the car) awake, even though it doesn't bother my husband (the driver) at all. So I have to wait until she's asleep again to start using it. But that's okay. Needless to say, my new ear lamp now has a permanent home in my knitting bag.

I've also decided to always carry around my new Denise Interchangeables. One small kit means that I will always have almost all the needle sizes I will need with me at all times. PERFECT!

And my parents gave me one last vaguely knitting-related present:

Earmuffs? Earmuffs, you say? How is this possibly knitting-related in any way? Ah...but wait...

Yes...they're actually a combination of earmuffs and earphones. Which I will plug into my MP3 player. Which I will use to listen to knitting podcasts on the subway! I'm delighted. Because when the earphones that came with the player crapped out, I delved into my decades-old stock of ridiculously outdated earphones just to make the thing work, and they have, one by one, bitten the dust. Now, not only can I once again listen to podcasts while commuting, but the earmuff component helps filter out the horribly loud drone of the trains, which makes the podcasts much easier to hear. Hip, hip, hooray.

As for gift reactions, my parents really liked their socks and tried them on right away. My mom didn't seem to have any negative (read: itchy) reaction to the wool, and really liked the idea of the aloe and jojoba being infused in the fibres to give her feet some pampering. However, they both took the socks off after a few minutes because the apartment was pretty warm and they wanted to go around in bare feet.

Yesterday, we visited them again, and next to the front door, I noticed the taupe pair that I'd given my dad sitting on top of his outside shoes. This meant that he'd been wearing them! :) He said they were very comfortable and he liked them a lot because they went with just about all his clothes. (The black pair apparently doesn't go with all his clothes - which is sort of weird, since I think black socks go with just about anything. However, despite my mom's best efforts, my dad's colour and fashion sense has always been a little off - do not get me started on the mint green suit he used to wear to work during the 80s. Fortunately, I think I managed to convince him that he could wear black socks with lots more of his clothes than he previously thought.) He also said they were warm. Really warm. I was left with the distinct impression that they'd been too warm. But I'm not worried. Right now our winter is being ridiculously balmy, but I know my climate - it will totally make up for the mild November and December over the next few months, AND will throw the usual Frebruary snow insanity at us on TOP of that. (I am so not looking forward to experiencing that during my third trimester, but what can I do.) So, give it about 4-8 weeks...I guarantee that my dad is totally NOT going to be complaining that his socks are too warm at that point, boy howdy.

The Girlfriend Shrug for DD

A few days after Christmas I went through the entire Knitting Pattern-a-Day : 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar that I got from my MIL to see what patterns were in it. Unsurprisingly, it's a mixed bag. Some of them are kinda bad. Some of them are fine but not to my taste. Some of them are nice. And some of them are really good.

One of the patterns I really liked was 'The Girlfriend Shrug' - it takes a sock weight yarn (the idea is to use self-patterning stuff in girly colours) and ranges from sizes 2-3 to...um...I'm not sure, about 8-9? It is super-cute, and would be a really nifty thing to pack in the diaper bag during the summer as something to throw around DD's shoulders if she gets a bit chilly in the afternoon/evening.

So here I am, liking this pattern very much, whilst simultaneously being in possession of 100g of self-patterning sock yarn in a cotton/wool blend (with a wee bit of nylon), dyed in colours that would look outstanding on my kid. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

Sorry, mom. I'll make you socks out of something else.

The only snag is that I don't think the 100g is going to be enough. For one thing, I checked the label, and there is much less yardage in this ball of yarn than in 100g of my usual wool/nylon blend sock yarn (which I assume is due to the cotton content - cotton must be heavier than wool by volume). So I'm screwed there right off the bat. Secondly, I did a rough guess as to how many stitches I can get out of a full 100g of wool/nylon blend sock yarn, vs. a rough guess as to how many stitches would be in the 4-5 year size of this shrug...and I'm about 4000 stitches short. This screws me even more.

But what the hell. Me being me, I cast on anyway.



I'm so doomed.

I calculated that I might be able to make it if I narrow the sleeve width by about 16%. Would such sleeves still fit my kid? I'll have to check to make sure (I haven't gotten around to asking her to try putting her arm through the sleeve-in-progress yet, which is why the project is temporarily stalled). But even with this change, I could still easily run out of yarn.

Who knows what will happen? It's like Russian Roulette, but with a girly shrug.

Stay tuned. High drama ahead.

Ljod cardigan for moi

Since my daughter's shrug project is on hold, I was looking around last night for something to work on at my parents' place, and this caught my interest. So I did several inches on it after DD went to bed and we were all shooting the breeze. Then this morning, I didn't have time to pack up DH's 2007 Christmas present project (which would have been more faithful to The Schedule), so I brought good ol' Ljod instead. I'm finished the armhole shaping and am working my way up towards the shoulders.

(Dammit, I forgot to take a picture. Oh, well. Sorry. Picture forthcoming.)

Last night at my parents', I started trying to do this in continental, but quickly switched back to English in order to take full advantage of the hand of the yarn. When I throw, the yarn passes through my hands more fully and I generally just get to touch the yarn more. With most projects, I consider speed to be more important than communing with the yarn, but Silky Wool is just such a pleasure to touch that for this project, I am totally willing to sacrifice speed for getting to feel up the yarn.

Twizzle cardigan for DD

I brought out the camcorder yesterday when DD was wearing both the cardigan and the hat, and took some shots. Unfortunately, they all suck, picture quality-wise (the camcorder's still shot capability when picturing humans is very disappointing in non-natural light). However, here's the best of them: