Spring is coming...time to think about Christmas!

Yep, I'm just that insane.

When planning this kind of thing, I like to start with a fantasy list, and then winnow it down to realism. So here we go.

• DH: Durrow, in dark purple Cascade 220
• DD1: Ruby, in blues, greens and whites with pink accents
• Mom: Spanish Knight, in purple Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool
• Bro: Ragna, in navy Patons Canadiana (it is apparently wise not to give him anything handwashable)
• BIL1: KWB/TSF Hat, in something soft and warm
• BIL2: Kilkenny, in olive green Berroco Ultra Alpaca
• DD1's teacher: no idea who it is yet, so I don't know what I want to make
• DD2's teacher: ditto

It's a lot.

I always like to give handknits to teachers, because I know I won't be giving them the same thing as another family does. And honestly, if I were a teacher, twenty students a year multiplied by two gift-giving occasions a year? That's a crapload of chocolates and teacher-themed swag cluttering up my house. And I'm uncomfortable giving gift certificates - they don't seem very personal. But children have all kinds of opportunities to pump their teachers for the sort of information a knitter needs to know about her intended victim gift recipient (favourite colour, interests, religion, etc.) in order to come up with a really personalized handknit.

(Seriously, think about it. If you were a teacher, and one of your students asked you what your favourite colour was, would you have any inkling that their mom instructed them to do that so she would know what colour of yarn to buy for your custom-knitted hat? Hell, no! Kids are curious, they ask teachers all kinds of crap. I bet I could even find out the pattern of a teacher's good china without them ever suspecting anything was in the wind.)

All of that to say that it has always seemed to me that getting a personalized handknitted gift is a really good choice for the teachers. :) So unless they turn out to be incompetent educators that spoil my children's enjoyment of school, they're getting knitted gifts.

Mom's Spanish Knight and my brother's Ragna have already been on the needles for quite awhile, but I have axed them in previous years because of time constraints. I think I might try to get the Ragna actually completed this year, though. Definitely I want to do the hat for my older BIL, because it will make a nice change from the socks he usually gets. Also, his usual hairstyle of choice is a shaved head, so he really should have a very warm hat for wintertime. I suspect I will succumb and do Ruby, because both DD1 and I are really taken with it. And I find my younger BIL quite hard to buy for, so it would be really nice to just knit him something and not worry about whether he'll like it (because he always appreciates my handknits). But...to do the Kilkenny on top of two other big projects, plus a hat, and two other things for teachers...mmm...that doesn't sound very reasonable. Hm. Perhaps instead, I will make him a Jayne hat! He is a big Firefly fan, and has hinted in the past that such a hat would be extremely welcome. Yes. I'll try to fit that in, too. And if I can't, perhaps some "boughten" Firefly swag will do just as nicely.

Yarn store, here I come!

I know you don't want to hear it...

Christmas is coming.

(Of course, I'm right in the middle of getting the house clean for Thanksgiving, and sewing up the cloak for DD1's Red Riding Hood costume for Hallowe'en, but nevertheless...Christmas is coming.)

Now, I don't celebrate Christmas in the religious sense. I celebrate it in the gift-giving, seeing-family, eating-a-lovely-meal, celebrating-the-end-of-another-year, trying-to-find-something-to-get-happy-about-in-the-middle-of-all-the-snow sort of sense. The gift-giving is especially fun for me, even though I do most of the thinking-up of gift ideas, buying stuff, knitting gifts, and wrapping presents around here. (If you read just a soupçon of bitterness into that, you would be correct.) So yes, it's stressful...but it's also a lot of fun. I've got some gift plans this year that I'm quite excited about, and quite an ambitious knitting to-do list.

In a moment, I will reveal this list, but first, I want to make sure no one is reading it who shouldn't. So, a short quiz...

1. Are you a descendant of my parents and/or my husband's parents?
2. Do you provide care or education for any of my children?
3. Are you cared for by my children's daycare provider? (That includes her kids!)

If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, then for heaven's sake, get your nosy eyes off the blog this minute!

Ahem.

So, the list...

Mi escuelita for Devangi

This is coming along really nicely. Both sleeves are done and attached to the body, and I'm decreasing for the raglan shaping.



I am nervous that I'm going to run out of yarn, though.

Cotton wool socks for Mom

These have not seen any work for I can't remember how long. I've been at the done-first-sock-started-second-sock stage for...oooh...ugh. Over a year, I'm guessing. But I'm hoping to be able to find the motivation to pick it back up and finish it off in time for Christmas.

Barbie wardrobe for DD1

I've got several items that I'm hoping to finish. On the needles right now is Rhonda Gehringer's Summer Sorbet Dress for Barbie, in white. I'm going to make the skirt fuller and longer than the instructions say to, because I think DD1 would like something that could pass as a wedding gown. So far, we have this:



Other Barbie garments I'm hoping to finish include Judy Gibson's Barbie's Basic Tube Dress; Isabelle Dutailly's Robe tube arc-en-ciel pour Barbie (Barbie's rainbow tube dress); the long coat from Elaine Phillips's Barbie Elegant 2-Piece Suit; and Silvana Catallo's Gilet Big Jem (something for Ken).

Socks for DD2

It's not tremendously vital that I manage to finish these, but I thought it would be nice. For one thing, with the cold weather coming, I'm feeling a deeply parental responsibility to keep my children's extremities as warm as possible. And for another thing, toddler-size socks are super easy to make out of the yarn left over from making adult-size socks, which I have rather a lot of, so I wouldn't need to go out and buy any new yarn. Also, small socks are fast and cute.

Socks for Dad

My dad is pretty hard to come up with gift ideas for; at least, gift ideas that I can actually afford. (Ideas would come thick and fast if my budget were big enough to buy fancy camera doodads and gadgets, for example.) But I know he loves my hand-made socks. I'm thinking about Alice Bell's "Bakerloo" pattern, which is a sideways sock pattern that can apparently be done up to look like the keys of a piano. My dad's unpursued career dream was to become a concert pianist, and he adores classical music, so I think this would be much appreciated.

Double-knitted mitts for BIL#2

BIL#2 has recently moved to Ottawa. It gets cold in Ottawa, and I want to make sure he is warm. Last year I knitted him a hat, so this year it's going to be mitts. I will be using Marcia Lewandowski's Houndstooth Double Knit Mittens pattern from her book, "Folk Mittens" (although it can also apparently be found in Interweave Knits Winter 1997 issue). I'll probably use Cascade 220 - I'll get two masculine colours which vary slightly so that the pattern is understated. DH agrees with me that this is a great idea, so this project is a must-finish.

Ragna sweater for my brother

Finishing this in time for Christmas would mean one less gift idea I'd have to come up with for my brother. (He's tough to buy for.) Unfortunately, I have no idea how I'll manage to finish in time. If memory serves, I've finished the back and am close to finishing the front, but there has been a serious screwup and my row count is totally off. Getting back into it is going to be a challenge, to say nothing of the fact that I still have to do both sleeves and all the making up. We'll just have to wait and see on this one.

Challah cover for DD1's teacher

DD1's teacher has a Jewish surname and took the day off on Yom Kippur, so I'm guessing a challah cover will be a nice gift for her. Judith Goodman Johnson's Challah Cover [scroll down to find it] pattern is really beautiful - I particularly like how the cabled braid around the edge mirrors the shaping of the bread. :) I will be changing up the wording, though, so that it doesn't look quite so "busy". Probably a nice, simple "Shabbat Shalom" (in Hebrew, of course) will work well.

DD1, who has been enjoying the role of "spy", informs me that her teacher's favourite colour is purple. So I will pick up some nice purple cotton fingering weight sometime fairly soon.

Ljod for moi

I'm toying with the notion of trying to finish this in time for Christmas as a gift for my husband. Yes, it would be a cardigan for me to wear, but it's very shape-accentuating, so really it would be for him, if you know what I mean. :) However, the odds of me actually being able to finish it in time on top of everything else I need to do are pretty much zero, so I suspect this will end up being an anniversary present or something.

Tree skirt for our tree

Right now we have just some green cloth to cover up the plastic legs of our Christmas tree. It works okay, but a knitted tree skirt - such as the gorgeous cabled one by Teva Durham in "Handknit Holidays" - would be scads better. Will I have time? Probably not, but it's worth putting on the list of things to attempt, anyway.

Wish me luck. Maybe elves will show up and help me...

This Christmas cometh, and that right soon

Firstly, I'd really like to thank those of you who sent messages of sympathy, either in the comments or privately. They were lovely and heartening to read. Sadly, my dear mother-in-law died last Tuesday. I'm so glad she's not suffering anymore, but I will miss her very much, and I'm very sad that she missed seeing Christmas. She loved this time of year. Shopping and giving were sources of tremendous enjoyment for her, and of course she loved having family about, especially the grandkids.

So it looks like Christmas will be at our house this year, for the first time. We're therefore in a bit of a mad frenzy to make sure that the house is presentable and (if necessary) sleep-over-able. Also, since Christmas is here at home, my husband and I have decided to do stockings for the kids. We've never done this before, because we've always slept over someplace else on Christmas Eve, but now we'll do the whole cookies-and-milk-for-Santa thing and it'll be great fun. My husband is particularly delighted - it's a little spark of fun joy during a tough time.

All these changes of plans have necessitated a change to some of my knitting plans, especially with just over two weeks to go. (Two weeks? TWO WEEKS?!? Deep breaths. Ohmmmmm...)

Ragna for my brother

This has been officially shelved. I'm sad about that, because it's working out to be a terrific sweater, but I'm having technical difficulties with the front and back - they're both finished; but the two sides of the back neck opening have ended on two different rows of the pattern; which is a different row again from where I ended the front. I'm not quite sure how I managed to do this, but I don't really have the time to find out, particularly with two whole sleeves left to go. Given the situation right now, I'm all about the minimization of my personal stress, so I'm going to carry this project forward to next year. I'm sad about this, but there are a few silver linings. Firstly, I found my notes for how long the sleeves are supposed to be, so I'll be in good shape to get this finished up in the new year; and secondly, I have an excellent substitute gift that my brother will love. Shh.

Ilaisa's Wristies for Mrs. C

I had a heart-stopping moment this week when I was going over the master plan for all the Christmas gifts and realised I'd forgotten about DD1's teacher.

Way to go, brain.

Fortunately, I was able to come up with a solution: I'm using Myrrhia Resneck's Ilaisa's Wristies pattern, which is a free fingerless gloves pattern that looks pretty fantastic. It has instructions to accommodate FIVE different yarn weights - how awesomely versatile is that? I'm going to be using the three skeins of Phildar Exciting yarn that I bought at Value Village this summer. It's a really silky 51/49 blend of wool and viscose with lovely, soft variegating colours. I swatched it up and showed it to DD1, and she approved. (If she hadn't, I had a backup plan to use some of the cone of aqua wool/angora/nylon (I think that was the blend, anyway) laceweight that June gifted me with a while back...this fortunately turned out to be unnecessary, but how cool is that, that I could've substituted a laceweight if the worsted hadn't worked out?)

They work up really damn quickly:



That is one completed glove (minus the weaving in of ends, which I have tucked out of sight for the sake of a pretty picture) and about five rows done on glove #2. This represents one day of commuting time. Not bad, eh?

They're a little loose on me, but I'm pretty sure the teacher's hands are bigger than mine, so hopefully the fit will be ideal.

Christmas socks for DH

Done! I've wrapped them up but unfortunately all our gift tags seem to have relocated somewhere and I have no idea where. I blame DH. He's promised to find them. I have stashed the gift bag in the armoire in the meantime. Once I do finish the wrapping, I shall put the gift under the tree, and hope like heck that my toddler doesn't start opening all the gifts and spreading their contents throughout the house.

Edit a few minutes later: Just realised that I hadn't actually talked about these socks on the blog before blogging about finishing them. Brilliant. This was one of the things I'd been knitting on which I didn't feel like talking about in my previous post. Started them up on November 24, worked on them during my commute, and bingo-bango-bongo, they were done 10 days later. I used the OnLine Supersocke 100 Afrika Color 89 yarn that I'd gotten from The Studio at a ridiculously discounted sale price earlier in the year. I like them a lot and I think DH will too. The socks are, as is usual for me, precisely identical...except for being mirror images of each other. Gosh, I'm anal.

Toddler alpaca socks

This pair is destined for DD2, and might even turn out to be a Christmas gift (especially if I can't find the almost-finished socks that I was planning to give her for Christmas but which have now mysteriously disappeared). But mostly I'm making these socks so I can know exactly how much leftover yarn there will be to make Barbie clothes for my older daughter. The Barbie clothes plan is another Christmas gift. I'll be running around gathering up yarn leftovers here and there for them...as soon as I can find the #*@#$*&!!!-ing pattern book with all the instructions for the clothes in it. Also mysteriously unfindable. Particularly mysterious when you consider that I have TWO COPIES of the damn booklet.

Christmas socks for DD1

Finished these toward the end of November and I love them EVEN MORE than I did while making them. They are gorgeous and fun and vibrant and perfect for my kid. They are also wrapped in a gift baggie without a tag, which is hiding in my garb armoire. (I write the location of all these gifts in this blog not because you actually care, but for my own reference when panic because I can't remember where they're hidden.) I know she will love them. Can't wait!

AFK hat for BIL#2

My younger BIL is very into World of Warcraft. What I really want to get him for Christmas is a T-shirt customized to his character (guild, alliance, etc.). However, I have run into a serious snag - I have zero information about his character. And this is not for lack of trying! I have used all my Interweebs stalking skills to try and find out ANYTHING that would be helpful, with zero results. He mentions absolutely nothing about his WOWing on Facebook or Twitter. I can't find any friends on either of those sites that I can either positively identify as people he knows through WOW or who are close enough to him that they'd know anything about his character. I've tried to find him on the main WOW message boards. I've tried to find him on the message boards for his favourite WOW podcast. Alas, the dude has made himself totally stalker-proof, WOWly speaking. AUGH!

So the very least I can do is to whip him up a hat and do "<AFK>" in duplicate stitch at the front. It's a pathetic backup plan to my original cool gift idea, but it's all I've got at this point. (Well, that plus a few other geeky gifts that should tickle his fancy.)

(Oh, and by the way? If it seems like a lot of things seem to disappear around here? You're right. Story of my life. Along with things like visiting Spain and getting a book published, one of my major goals is to actually, finally, get my $#!+ together before I shuffle off this mortal coil. At this point, winning the lottery seems more likely, but I continue to try.)

Surprise!

So about a week or so ago, I went to an SnB at my LYS, to find that they're now selling the Baby Surprise Jacket [scroll way down] pattern! Now, I have been coveting this for a good long while, and even went to purchase it online at one point, but wimped out when I realised that shipping was almost 80% of the cost of the pattern itself. But suddenly, with the pattern right there at the shop ready to come home with me, I snapped that sucker up so fast that it was in my bag practically before everybody else had a chance to say hello to me. :) I can't tell you how badly I want to start making a jacket with it, but I'm going to have to hold off until I put a bunch of my deadline-driven projects to bed.

And suddenly, I have another deadline-driven project, because one of my extremely dear friends (whom we haven't seen in a while) called me a few weeks ago and revealed that he and his wife are expecting in the new year. SQUEE!!! So I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to make, but as I say, he's a dear friend, and she is a serious knitter, so whatever it is, it's going to be good. I may design something especially.

I was also delightfully surprised by the fact that my LYS is having a sale this week to celebrate the one-year anniversary of moving in to their new location. So I took advantage.

That's one skein of On Your Toes Bamboo sock yarn, a bunch of Fabel sock yarn, and five skeins of Classic 8 Ply from Naturally Magic Garden. The picture shows only three skeins of the Fabel, but I actually bought four, all self-patterning: two of a glorious earthy orange-reddish theme for an adult-size pair of socks (probably for me), one of a really fun blue/green/purple colourway for something for my baby girl (possibly socks, possibly something else), and the last one:

Christmas socks for DD1

This yarn is deliciously cute and fun, it's perfect for my older girl, and I love it like crazy:



I'm using my own sock pattern and am getting close to finishing the first sock already. The yarn is just so much damn fun, I love it.

Ragna sweater for brother

This is what I've really been pulling out all the stops for in the last two weeks. I finished the front:



And I'm very close to finishing the back:



The needle is angled in that shot because I'm already working on the neck shaping on one side.

Of course, it wouldn't be a true large Christmas knitting gift without some serious problems threatening to rear ugly heads. Firstly, I'm almost down to my last four balls of yarn and I haven't even started the sleeves. This makes me extremely nervous. Even more nervous-making is that I'm not sure I've truly finished the front because the length looks a little short. And secondly - I have completely lost the notes I made on how long the sleeves are supposed to be. Sigh.

But the good news is that I'm no longer panicked by how little I've done vs. how soon Christmas is coming - I think that as long as the yarn supply holds out, I'll be fine to make the deadline.

Lauren's blanket

Although I don't really have to worry about this until after Christmas, I really wanted to at least decide on the yarn and general idea of what I was going to do as soon as possible because, well, I'm just obsessive that way, I guess. :) I'd had my eye on some Northern Worsted acrylic in my LYS which is a gorgeous dark yet vibrant blue. Unfortunately, there were only five skeins of it, which was not enough to make a blanket, so I had to combine it with something. After much rummaging throughout the store (seriously, I combed the whole damn store), I found exactly ten 50g balls of Red Heart Comfort in a really nice navy, which - when combined with the Northern Worsted - gives me 1000g in total, which should work very nicely.

So now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with it. I've got a really nice cable motif that I worked out at some point in the past, but at the moment I'm having a hard time getting the increases I need for the blanket to work with it. I've lost track of how many times I've started it up. This is the latest attempt:



The good news is that the blue of the Northern Worsted doubled with the blue of the Red Heart Comfort creates a dazzlingly beautiful result - a deep, rich, velvety blue which the above photo doesn't do justice to. If only I could get my pattern idea to actually work, all would be well!

Well, lookee what we have here

It showed up in the mail yesterday evening and I had it read before I turned in. Last night also happened to be SnB at my LYS, so I brought it along. The cartoons got a lot of laughs.

So - an instant classic, I'd say. If you get your hands on a copy, I particularly recommend "The Underpants Knitters of Great Fussing-on-the-Wold".

Even more exciting, though, was the news (from the comments) that my friend Gillian has spawned for a second time! I'm so happy for you!!! Many, many congratulations, this is fantastic and glee-inspiring news. Alas for not sharing a birthday with me, but yeah, they do seem to have a mind of their own on emergence timing.

And on the knitting front, we have pretty much nothing to do with Christmas. I'm not sure whether I'm procrastinating to increase the challenge factor, whether I'm no longer taken with the projects I set for myself, or whether I'm simply a total moron. You decide.

So what have I been working on?

Alpaca sox for DD1

Dunzo.

DD1 is still semi-keen on my using some of the remaining yarn for socks for her sister, but has also begun angling for Barbie clothes instead. I assured her I could do both with the remaining yarn. Seriously. I can't remember exactly how much I have left, but it's quite close to half the original skein.

Ragna for my brother

Okay, this is Christmas knitting, but it's hardly seen any action at all. The good news? I found the book with the pattern. The bad news? It had disappeared again this morning when I was trying to be a good little Christmas knitter and pack it so I could work on it during the commute. After scouring the house for it and almost making myself late for my morning train, DH (who had generously assisted in the search) theorized that he thought he'd seen it in DD2's nursery. Where she was, at that moment, sleeping...restlessly.

Bugger.

Needless to say, I did not end up packing the sweater today.

On the plus side, it is at least now to the point where I can begin shaping for the neck.

Justin's Blanket

Some time ago, I think I mentioned that it was my plan to make sweaters for the children of the sister of one of my best friends. This was my meagre attempt to express my serious, serious gratitude to the children's mother for letting me have - completely free, although of course I offered to pay her - all her kids' outgrown clothes.

Unfortunately, it appears that the children are heat generators and never wear sweaters because they are never cold enough to want to wear them.

In response, I pointed out that I could knit the kids anything, and that it didn't have to be warm sweaters, it could be cotton hoodies, or (for the girl) a cotton dress, or hat/mitts/scarf sets...whatever. Knitting has almost infinite possibilities.

Recently, I received the reply that the kids could really use afghans for snuggling under while watching television. Bingo! Here was something I could totally do and have a lot of fun with.

The boy's favourite colours are red and black, and I found a super-cool-awesome pattern: the Spiderman Blanket (first pattern in list) by AnneM. In keeping with the colour scheme I was given, I'm using red and black only instead of the more technically-correct-for-Spiderman red, blue and black (my husband keeps harping on the fact that the lack of blue is incorrect; I keep telling him where to stuff it), and bought a bunch of red Canadiana acrylic from Patons and black Berella "4" from Bernat.

So far?



Really cool pattern. Unfortunately, I've kind of hit a wall - I now have too many stitches to fit nicely on the cable needle. I am using a Denise needle for this, though, so it ought to be a simple matter to add another cable insert, right? Well, that would certainly be the case if I could find the second join that came with the freakin' kit!!! It really does seem to have vanished into thin air and I have no idea where else to look. I thought perhaps I could buy one of those extra cables, because my LYS carries them...but do you know that the extra cable packet does not include an extra join piece?!? Does that make any sense! Augh!!!

Ahem.

As for the girl's blanket, I'm still waffling on what to do. Several ideas are swirling in the brain. I may design my own or use an existing pattern. Stay tuned.

Black socks for some guy

This morning, since I'd hit a wall on the Spiderman blanket and couldn't find the pattern for my brother's sweater, I had nothing to bring with me on the commute. The despondency this infused me with cannot be understated. In desperation, I grabbed some black sock yarn and sock needles and started up a new pair of men's socks once I got on the train. No idea who's getting these. Maybe my dad. Maybe my husband. Maybe...I don't know. Perhaps my brother, if I can't find the damn pattern book for the sweater I'm trying to make him...

You'd never know Christmas was coming

...Because I've been doing almost zero Christmas knitting. Seriously. How stupid is this of me? I mean, I got a great head start earlier in the year, but now there are fewer than two months to go and there's still a pile of work to do. Here's my list:

Family, STOP READING NOW, DAMMIT.

• DH: maybe some socks. Status: Not even on the radar yet, but I think I know which yarn to use.
• DD2: also maybe some socks. Status: I at least know which yarn I want to use.
• MIL: Lliclla wrap. Status: Still have to block it.
• Mom: two pairs of socks. Status: pair #1 has one sock down but the second one barely started; pair #2 I've still got about a third of the way to go before I finish the first sock.
• Dad: Probably socks (geez, do you sense a theme?), maybe two pairs. Status: I need to buy the yarn.
• Brother: Ragna sweater. (Thank heavens; something which isn't socks.) Status: Haven't even finished one side of the damn thing yet; I'm probably totally screwed.

On the upside, though, I'm doing well with the baby gifts. However, I would like to warn everyone I know who's of procreating age that if anybody else announces any babies which are due before December, you're getting store-bought stuff from me, and that's final.

Log Cabin for baby Miller

Finito!



I really like it. I'm thrilled that I finally figured out how to do the spirals thing with the log cabin technique; I'm thrilled that I found more of the yarn in the basement just as I hoped I would; I'm thrilled that I managed to find a really good edging motif that struck exactly the right balance between the need for baby frills and the geometric square-ish nature of the blanket itself (#278 from Lesley Stanfield's "The New Knitting Stitch Library", in case you're curious); and I'm thrilled that it took me less than two weeks to do (let's hear it for bulky yarn and thick needles).

What I also found thrilling about this project - but not thrilling in a good way - was how little of the yarn I had left when I finished. Here is all that's remaining of the three different colours I used, with my hand included for scale:



Yeah. Cutting it damn fine, I was, particularly with the solid purple. I don't mind telling you that when I rounded the corner right before the final long edge (with another corner and a teeny bit of edge to go after that long edge was done) and looked at how much purple was left, I got really, really scared. You know that thing in knitting where you start getting really nervous about whether you've got enough to finish your project, and as you keep going, you vascillate wildly between "yes! I think there's enough!" and "no! I'm totally doomed!"? That was me all over for the final stretch, baby. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end.

I'm going to have to ask my mom whether I should send it off to my cousin myself, or - if it turns out that my parents are also sending along a gift, which I certainly expect is the case - whether I should give it to my mom so she can mail both gifts in a single package.

P.S. to Glyn, if you're reading this? Yes, it's for your sister - please keep it secret!

Turquoise socks for DD1

I'm still working here and there on the first sock. It's very tall...but still not tall enough. DD1 likes her socks extremely long, like up to her knees, so it's taking me a while. I'm doing the leg in 1x1 ribbing to boot, so you can imagine how scintillating I find it. (The plunking sound you just heard is the drip-drip-dripping of my sarcasm.)

Log Cabin

This also got a bit of time since my last blog entry - nothing spectactular, nothing to merit a new photo - but still, progress is progress.

Ragna

As I'm now starting to feel the first faint stirrings of panic about Christmas, I figured I should stop procrastinating on this one. Alas, I think I've so far managed to do only about one more row. Sad. Also, I can't find the book with the pattern.

No big deal, you might say, with almost two months to go? Like hell. The boy is not tiny and it's cables...all over the sweater.

I'm so screwed.

Idea for baby garment

Usually my design ideas come from wanting to do specific designish stuff. But this design idea comes from a very specific yarn (On Your Toes Bamboo), in two very specific colours (which I'm not going to reveal here just yet). From there, the motif (which you'll also have to wait for) just suggested itself to me, and now I'm trying to think of what kind of baby garment I should apply it to. Ideally, I'd like a blanket, but for that I'd need to buy a lot more of the yarn than I really have the budget for. Maybe a sleep sack. I'm not sure. Stay tuned, I'm hoping it will turn out to be excruciatingly precious.

Idea for something cabled

I got hit by an idea for a cable motif this week, charted it up and swatched it out in some acrylic sportweight. It's not looking too bad, I think I can make it work. I'm thinking about using it on a baby jacket.

And finally, two more neat things before I sign off for another week or so. Firstly, I wanted to give a nod to Carrie K, who left an awesomely quotable sentence in her comments for my last blog entry. Here it is: "Sometimes the Knitting Goddesses just want us to swatch fruitlessly."

Doncha love it?

The second thing has to do with the piece I wrote for the Cast On podcast, which I mentioned a few months ago. My revision was accepted, and tonight I sent my recording off to Brenda. If she deems it to be up to snuff, you'll hear my voice doing the piece. If not, you'll hear somebody else doing it. Either way, I'm not quite sure when it's going to air, but hopefully sometime soon. I'm pretty darn nervous about the whole thing and I hope you like it...assuming you listen to Cast On...which you totally should, because Brenda puts out a great show.

I'm not dead

It's just really hard to find the time to blog. Without, y'know, neglecting the children; or leaving everyone with nothing clean to wear; or blogging at work; or cutting into my knitting time; or deciding that my kids don't actually need birthday parties. Stuff like that.

When did life get so TIME CRUNCHED?!? Augh!

(Don't answer that. I know when.)

But I digress.

Knitting has indeed been continuing to happen. Actually, finding knitting time is super-easy, as my work commute is about 85 minutes each way. As much as I detest having to get up really early; not seeing the girls in the morning; and spending so much time in transit, it is still really lovely to have a good hour and a half per day to myself, all for knitting, in a (fairly) comfy commuter train seat, with sun coming in through the windows, listening to knitting podcasts.

And so, here's what I've been up to...

Ragna for bro

This continues to grow. I'm about three or four inches away from the neck shaping, I think. The cables look awesome. (No surprise there, since Elsebeth Lavold designed them.)

Ljod for moi

I don't think I've actually worked on this any more since my last blog post, but I have taken an updated picture:

Prototype sock

Design inspiration struck again. (I love it when that happens.) After various false starts, I made a prototype sock (just one, made from leftover sock yarn that I've now used up, so it will, sadly, never have a mate). I'm really happy with it, but that's all I'm going to say for the moment. Hopefully I'll eventually be able to tell you more about it. :)

Christmas socks for Dad

Fresh from my triumph with the prototype sock of my own design, I decided to use the same design for my dad's Christmas socks this year (to heck with what I'd been working on before), ripped out what I had, and re-cast on. I may continue to try putting some snazzy subtle twist-knit cables on it to change it up a bit...but I'm not sure.

Comfy Angel's Nest for baby ?

I realised that I needed to do some more baby knitting. There are...

Hm. Wait just a second...

Chris, are you reading this? Get the heck off my blog now. You have a baby coming! Stop peeking!

(Not the most respectful way to speak to one's boss, sorry, man, but sometimes one needs to go to strange lengths to preserve the shroud of knitted gift mystery.)

Ahem.

You think he's gone now? (Admittedly, I don't think he ever reads this blog, I'm just being overly cautious and silly.)

Okay. Then, to resume...

I returned to work last month after my mat leave to find that my director was expecting his second child. (Yay!) He told me not to knit anything for him, but I am going to totally ignore that because I am, well, me. What I really would like to give him is the Sweetness prototype - it's recently knitted, already washed, hasn't been worn by my baby daughter except for the photo shoot, and is too small for her now anyway. And I really want that top to go to a nice home, because I think it's deliciously pretty and I really, really love it. The downside of this plan, of course, is that this would be a really useless gift if the baby turns out to be a boy. So I need a backup plan.

I found this sleep sack pattern through Ravelry's awesome pattern search, and I think it's really cute. I'm making it bigger than the pattern calls for, because it's a rather warm item of clothing, completely inappropriate for spring and summer wear. So if I make it about 6-9 months size, that will do well for fall/winter for this baby.

Here is how it's going so far:



Cute, eh? And the good part is that if I don't end up using it for my boss' baby, I'll send it off to Australia where my cousin (once removed) is expecting her first baby, due this fall (her spring). Again, the timing will be perfect, since the size I'm making will fit the baby in Australia's fall/winter. Tadah, I win no matter what, because if this project ends up going to my boss, I'll simply make my cousin something else nice.

Lliclla for MIL

Every year I look for something spectacular to make for my MIL, and every year I have tons of wonderful ideas, and every year I can't afford any of them. Le sigh.

I have deeply wanted to make her Helen Hamann's Llcilla mantle for almost two years, ever since I won the book with the pattern in it. It is truly spectacular, and the colours used in the model for the book would suit my MIL (a redhead) bee-yew-tifully. But I've been stymied by the price of the yarn it would take. Actually, no, not really the price of the yarn. I have actually found two places which offer appropriate yarn in more-or-less the right colours, and the yarn is vaguely within my budget: elann.com's Peruvian Highland Wool and KnitPicks's Wool of the Andes Yarn (hmm, I sense a theme...). Unfortunately, this affordability of both of these hits the crapper when you add the shipping cost.

I felt like weeping. Here was the yarn that would make this gorgeous thing, and my budget could almost handle it...but not quite.

But then...I had an epiphany.

If I ordered something in addition to the Christmas project yarn...something really inexpensive that I could slough off on some other part of our household budget...well then, I could have that part of the budget 'eat' the shipping costs, and I'd only have to assign the cost of the yarn for Lliclla to the Christmas budget! YES!

Almost giddy with glee, I added four balls of Elann's Sock It to Me 4 Ply yarn in black to my cart, and checked the whole thing right on out. I make black socks for DH as gifts and clothing ALL THE TIME. I'm going to account the sock yarn and the shipping charge to the birthday presents budget, or the clothing budget, and all will be taken care of.

Ahhhhhh. I can't wait to get the yarn. I'm going to cast that sucker on so fast it'll make your head swim.

Unless the colours end up being totally different from how they looked on my monitor. Then I shall cry.

Oh, and if it turns out that the yarn sale that my LYS is having this Saturday brings other yarn that would've been good for this project into my price range...well, I'll cry then, too.

Wish me luck!

And finally, I have the photographs for the two KWB/TSF hats I mentioned in my last post:

Child KWB/TSF Hat #2

Baby KWB/TSF Hat

Emerging from the hat jag

Ack. Trying to get caught up on your blogging when you're working/commuting/spending time with your children/sleeping/doing chores for 23 hours out of 24 is challenging, to say the least. Fortunately, the commuting time is also knitting time, so even if I can't post about my knitting progress, I am at least making some.

So let's start with the whole KWB/TSF hat thing. Thank you very much to the folks who gave their opinions on price point. A very strong majority (including people on a bulletin board I'm on that I polled for help, too) liked the $4.99 price, so that's what it is. If you'd like to get yourself a copy of the pattern, you can either click on the 'Buy now' link for it in the sidebar at the right, or head on down to my LYS if you're in the area - the owner, June, has very kindly agreed to sell it in the shop. As mentioned, all profits will be donated to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, which is an extremely worthy cause, so if the pattern tempts you, by all means, give in. :) Especially exciting was getting a gungo-ho comment from the Director of Fundraising for MSF Canada herself. Wow! (Thanks so much, Gill, for sending Rebecca over!) The lovely news is that I've sold nine copies in the week-and-a-half or so since publishing it. Hopefully that's just the beginning.

Unsurprisingly, the hat jag continues. I know it's probably incredibly egotistical of me to be complimenting my own pattern, but I just find it really addictive and enjoyable. Actually, the only reason I was able to stop making more hats from it is that I started to run out of yarn. So far, we have: (and yes, some of these pictures are repeats from a few weeks ago, sorry)

Original KWB/TSF Hat

This one will be going to the neighbour kid/young man who inspired me to start making the thing in the first place. I just have to find the right moment to give it. Right as the winter is finishing and spring is starting doesn't exactly strike me as the perfect time, so I'll probably be waiting until the school year is over to make it more of a 'thanks for all your help with my kid in her first year of school' kind of thing.

KWB/TSF hat for DD2

This was the second one I made. DD2 needed a winter hat. Also, she was feeling the need to look cute as all get-out:



I swear, I get all squeaky and cooey every single time I see that shot.

KWB/TSF sample hat

My favourite colourway yet, I think. I love how the top of the hat looks like it's blushing on the lighter-colour-as-background side. I made this for Knitters Attic to display in the shop, since they're selling the pattern, and then later on when June doesn't want to display it anymore, I suspect it will come home and be mineallmine, even though I look crappy in earth tones.

First KWB/TSF hat for an actual charity

This one will be extremely hard to part with because it suits my older daughter's colour so fantastically. See how good she looks in it?

I've also made two more of the hats - another in the child size, and one in the baby size, but I haven't taken pictures yet. Soon, soon. And I've got another one on the go right now...but it's on hold for the moment because the colourway isn't jazzing me.

So I've taken advantage of the hat jag lull to make a wee bit of headway on The Schedule...

Ragna for bro

This came with me on my commute for a few days, and grew quite a bit. Again, no pictures yet, sorry - I'll try to get one up soon. (Hint: It looks exactly like it did the last time you saw it, except longer.)

Unfortunately, I've had to stop because it's getting close to the point where I'll need to start shaping the neck...and I have no clue exactly where that point is. I have completely lost the notes I took when my mom and I snuck into my brother's room one evening and measured one of his favourite sweatshirts for size. I remember what the width of the sweatshirt was supposed to be, because I got gauge exactly to achieve it...but length? Armhole depth? No freakin' clue. I've asked my mom to try and find the sweatshirt again (can we even remember which sweatshirt it was...heck, no!) and get me a re-do of the measurements. Until then, it stays on hold.

Ljod for moi

Faced with absolutely NOTHING ELSE I could take on my commute today, I packed this.

I swear, every single time I pull this project back out I am surprised by how much I enjoy it. Why do I keep being surprised by this? The yarn is gorgeous, the pattern is terrific, it knits up very quickly...and yet, when I'm not working on it, for some reason I consider it this big drag that I don't feel like getting back to. My psychology is weird, I tell you, weird.

Again, unfortunately, no pictures of the progress on this, but I've gotten far enough along on the left front that I've finished the cable pattern and am approaching the end of the decreasing for the hips.

And now, I'm off to bed. I do have more topics to get caught up with, blogging-wise (such as stuff about my Sweetness pattern and the Yarn Harlot's book launch), but it will have to wait for another time.

Later!

It's not always about me

As I've previously mentioned, a few years ago, my husband decided to learn how to knit, for the purposes of, as he put it, "self defence". Actually, there were more reasons than just that. He, being a sweet and caring man, knew that knitting was vitally important to me, and therefore wanted to know more about it for my sake. (Awww.) As well, he wanted some golf club head covers and really liked the idea of making them for himself.

He's turned out to be a remarkably fearless knitter. His second project (still unfinished, alas) was a cabled scarf for me, the pattern for which he made up himself. His third project was a basketweave scarf for our elder daughter, again, making up the pattern. (The fact that the basketweave stitch pattern has been around for a long time is of no consequence as far as my being impressed with him is concerned...he still invented it out of his own head without knowing about it beforehand.) His actual knitting is slowly done, he still keeps a death grip on the needles, and his gauge needs to be more onsistent, but his grasp of the basic concepts is strong and he has absolutely no problem with diving right in and inventing his own patterns. He is truly a wonder.

Lately, he's been picking my brains about socks. Partly because he wanted to start making socks for himself, and partly because he wanted to surprise me with socks for Christmas. (One has been made so far. It fits great.) Finally I told him that he could stop knitting just because I like knitting. However, it's too late. He is now, by his own admission, hooked.

[insert evil laugh here]

(Sadly I cannot show you photos of all the great stuff he's working on. He went to work and took all four of his current WIPs with him in case business gets slow. Perhaps another time.)

Socks are particularly obsessive for him, he tells me. This week he dropped by the LYS and picked up a 100g ball of some self-patterning 'On Your Toes' because the two pairs he's currently got on the needles are not enough. Have I created a monster? Perhaps.

He has become rather frustrated with the scarf he's knitting for me, though. It's now reached a stage where the length is a hindrance, and apparently (he tells me), men cannot sit with their legs closed - not only because they don't want to squoosh their goolies, but also because their hips just don't like being placed that way. (Who knew.) So the scarf keeps falling through his lap and pulling on his needles, which of course is a hindrance to the knitting. Last night as he was knitting, this happened to him one too many times, and in frustration he cried out,

"Get out from between my legs, you great big floppy thing!"

Ahem.

So anyway, back to me...

I self-published a pattern! It's the Lacy Ribs Scarf I recently finished - the weather finally cleared up enough on Wednesday that DH and I could go outside and do a decent photoshoot.


'in action'


pattern detail

If you'd like it, there's a 'buy now' link in the sidebar, or you can follow the link to the pattern page and click the 'available for purchase' link from there. Whether or not you feel like buying it, please feel free to comment on what you think of it...and do be honest. I'm on enough of a high from selling several copies already (holy cow, that is an AWESOME feeling!) that hopefully, even vitriolic criticism wouldn't bring me down too much. :)

Actually, I'm on a bit of a self-publishing kick right now...

Leafy baby poncho

I have already deviated from the 2008 Schedule. (You knew I would. However, it's pretty shocking how early in the year it happened.) I was going through the sock yarn display at Knitter's Attic, and came across a skein of On Your Toes that had lots of pinks and pale yellows and aquas in it. I held it up and remarked on what a truly 'girly' colourway it was, and how it could be turned into some great leggings for my eldest one day, or maybe a shrug, or something. You know. At some point in the future.

"Take it home," said June (the owner). "Make up your own shrug pattern, we'll display the model in the shop."

(You see how I am surrounded by temptation? Even my friends aren't helping me to be good.)

But I was strong. I did not yield. I put down the ball and left it there when it was time for me to go home.

Not an hour after I walked into the door of my house, I was seized with total inspiration to make a top-down baby poncho out of the sock yarn. I knew exactly how I was going to construct it, and how I wanted the lace pattern to look, and DAMMIT, the sock yarn was still sitting in the shop! Augh!

In the absence of the yarn to make the poncho, I grabbed some spare yarn and started fiddling with the pattern idea I had in mind. After many frustrating attempts, I triumphed and got the look I was going for. Alas, the yarn was still at the shop and I had to wait a few days before I could go in and pick it up. But once I did, I started it right up and am currently cruising at a wingspan of about 8 inches. I like it a lot. With any luck, there will be enough yardage in the ball to make a poncho that fits my younger daughter so that she can be the model when I self-publish the pattern. Whee!

Mitred baby blanket for Raymond

Being distracted by irresistible inspirations for other patterns has fortunately not hindered momentum on this project. It's going very well, and I'm actually ahead of Schedule with it - I finished this week's quota last night, five days ahead of when I had to.

I'm very eager to get this thing finished, photographed, and available for purchase. The construction of the blanket is so nifty that I can't wait to share.

But it's not all mercenary around here. I have been doing other stuff.

Anniversary socks for DH

I finished these! It took a little finagling with the yarn to make everything stripe exactly like the first sock, but they turned out great. I really, really like the way this yarn striped.



They are now hiding from DH in one of the baskets beside the living room futon. (I write that not for your own edification, but for mine. I can easily see myself tearing the house apart on the eve of our anniversary next month trying to find where the hell I put them, unless I write it down here.)

Paisley Long Shawl

I mentioned in my description of the Christmas haul that I had received (from my wonderful MIL) a kit to make the Paisley Long Shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting. The yarn that came with the kit was three skeins of 'Ruby'. This is an unutterably gorgeous wine-red. However, I had something different in mind. I wanted to make it out of three colours, blending and gradiating across the length of the shawl: 'Mahogany' (a plum), Ruby, and 'Cinnabar' (a lovely red with an almost indiscernable hint of brownishness). Fortunately, June at Knitter's Attic was extremely generous (considering that the kit was bought at another shop), and let me exchange my two extra skeins of Ruby for the Mahogany and Cinnabar. I think the colour effect is going to be stunning:



I wish I could say that I was going to start it soon, but it is sooo outside the realm of my 2008 Schedule, which really can't take too much more after-the-fact modification. Alas. (Sob.)

Child Legs for DD1

This has become my 'purse project' - the one I stash in my purse for emergency knitting needs. :) As such, it's seen a few inches' growth recently.

Ragna for my brother

Last week sometime, I think it was, I made the BRILLIANT move of going to the LYS with a knitting bag packed chock-a-block with projects...but not their patterns.

(Seriously. Could I be any more dumbass?)

Fortunately, Ragna was one of the projects, and I'm at the point where I'm just repeating the cable pattern over and over again until I hit a length somewhere past two feet. It's easy to look at the cabling that's already there and figure out from that what to do next, so it was the only project I was able to work on. I probably got about another inch or so done. (It's so hard to concentrate on knitting when you're in a yarn store that needs help putting the stock on the shelves. :)

Happy New Year

Let the record show that I finished my 2007 Christmas knitting a week before Christmas. Yes. I can scarcely believe it myself. I'm not going to gloat any more than that, though, otherwise the fates will squash me next Christmas.

Although, I rather think the fates are already squashing me, albeit in a different way. I am (hopefully) at the tail end of cold #4 since October. It SUCKS.

As far as the Christmas knitting went, everything was extremely well received. DD1's teacher thought the scarf was really beautiful (DD1 said there was gasping upon the first sighting, excellent). MIL adored her cardigan/jacket. My mom appeared delighted with the shawl and marvelled over the feel of the yarn. My daughter was totally excited about the dolly clothes and has been playing dressup frequently since we got back home from the Christmas visiting. DH adores his sweater and was actually totally surprised by it, despite dumbass moves on my part during its making, such as accidentally leaving the pattern lying out in full sight. BIL seemed marginally pleased with his socks (intense emotional reactions to good things are not his style).

So, a success, right? Not by half.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

I was able to sneak over to my mom's place and block the sweater there a week before Christmas. The next evening we were at my parents' place, so she packed it up and covertly handed it off to me when we arrived. DH never saw a thing.


front


back

Looks pretty good, eh? What could be wrong with it? Well, remember how I realised about halfway through DH's sweater that it was measuring too small? How I ripped everything back and started all over using the large instructions to make it wide enough?

Yeah. Well, it's too big.

I could scream. I mean, he is crazy loving the sweater, and totally doesn't care that it's a little sloppy, but I care...rather desperately, actually. This is a sweater that is supposed to cling gently (and hotly) to the male torso. The loose fit gives it a completely different look, which - while kinda nice - is not the one I was going for. (I was going for the hotness.) I am seriously tempted to knit the whole thing all over again. DH has told me not to be silly, but I'm sure I could steal it back from him without his noticing.

But wait...it gets better.

Elizabethan Jacket for MIL

This was brought out of its giftwrapping to the tune of delighted exclamations and superlative compliments. After all the gifts were unwrapped, my MIL immediately picked it back up so she could try it on.

Well.

Firstly, it took her about 10 minutes to undo all the buttons. (They may have been a tad too tight for the buttonholes. However, they were such a perfect match to the cardigan that I couldn't resist using them. Besides, I didn't find it that difficult to shove them through the buttonholes. Unfortunately, as my husband pointed out, I am not in my mid-70s with arthritis starting to affect my manual dexterity. Crap. I never thought of that.)

Secondly...once the thing was on, it was too small to button up the front. It just sits there open, gaping widely. I made the correct size, I got gauge, I blocked to measurements...but it's still too small. Figure that.

However, although my sense of perfection is deeply offended by this, I'm not that worried, because first of all, it being too small to fasten means she never has to struggle with the buttons, and secondly, it is totally more her style to wear it like a blazer. So, even though I screwed up, I win.

Now, of course, it's time to look ahead to the new year. And that means...(ominous musical chord)...looking at The Schedule.

You may have noticed that my sidebar here is filled with serious Schedule backlog. There were many projects I planned to do this year that I shamelessly threw over in favour of other projects. This is, of course, not how The Schedule is supposed to work. I am supposed to stick with it, otherwise it is pointless and I go back into my bad habit of making my husband a knitting widower. (Which actually happened hardly at all this year, despite my lack of respect for The Schedule.)

So, the question I must answer is, is there any point to making a Schedule for 2008, if I totally blew it in 2007?

The first step is to figure out what I want to accomplish this year.

• ASAP: blanket for the hopefully soon-to-be adopted son of one of my best friends (estimate: 7 weeks)
• ASAP: Girlfriend Shrug for DD1 before she grows out of the damn thing (estimate: 2 weeks)
• February 17: anniversary socks for DH (estimate: 1 week)
• April sometime: vest for myself (estimate: 3 weeks)
• spring/summer: Wheelie (estimate: 1 week)
• May 25: Muppet Roadkill blanket for DD1 (estimate: 2 weeks)
• June 5: birthday socks for DH (estimate: 1 week)
• Christmas: Ragna sweater for my brother (estimate: 8 weeks)
• Christmas: something out of the Sea Silk for my mom (estimate: 3 weeks)
• Christmas: something for my MIL (estimate: 7 weeks)
• Christmas: socks for my dad (estimate: 1 week)
• date unknown: thank-you sweaters (2) for the kids of the friend who gave me all their hand-me-down clothes this year (a lifesaver, Kathy, if you're reading this, I seriously can't thank you enough) and refused to take any money from me (estimate: 7 weeks)
• date unknown: 'Like, totally' top of my own design (estimate: 4 weeks)
• date unknown: two more patterns for my book (estimate: 6 weeks)
• date unknown: one or two cute things for DD2 (estimate: 3 weeks)
• date unknown: leggings for DD1 (estimate: 1 week)
• date unknown: Ljod (estimate: 3 weeks)

Result: I'm overloading myself by two months. Some things are going to have to go.

Non-project items on my list include:

• learn to knit stranded with the left hand holding both strands
• put together a lace knitting class
• write up my lacy ribs scarf pattern and start selling it

I know there are more, but I can't remember them right now.

So all in all, a damn full year. Might be worth writing up a new Schedule after all.

Jack and Jill dress for DD1's doll

This was the last thing I finished. One week before Christmas, I borrowed a crochet hook from my mom, finished off the back opening, found some buttons, and sewed them on.


front


back

Very cute stuff. Fits the doll I intended it for perfectly. DD1 adores it.

Self-patterning socks #whatever for DH

As promised, I ripped back everything I'd done on the first sock (almost the whole foot before the heel turn) and started again with four metal needles. The first sock is now done, and I'm working on the heel of the second.



I really, really like the striping on this one. It takes a really long time to come around to the beginning again. The only weird thing is that the first repeat on the first sock is the reverse of all the other repeats for (as far as I can tell) the rest of the ball. So I'm going to have to do something clever after I turn the heel of the second sock to make it stripe in the right direction up the leg. But that shouldn't be too hard. I'll have loads of yarn left over, too.

Ragna for brother

Once I finished all the Christmas knitting, I started working on this guilt-free. But I stopped working on it once Christmas came because we were spending a lot of time at my parents' place, and it doesn't really make a lot of sense to work on your brother's Christmas present in front of your brother. Still, a very good head start has been made on Christmas 2008:

A Very Harlot Poncho

This has seen a fair bit of action over the holidays. Whether it was because everything else was all packed up in the car ready to go for the various trips; or because it was something I could work on in front of other people without worrying about giving away a surprise; or because it was just mindless, stress-free knitting; it got attention.



Consequently, it's much closer to actually being finished...which probably means that I'll be packing it away soon, and it won't see the light of day again for about a year.

Child legs for DD1

So I was looking at my new ball of Trekking XXL, and it occurred to me how many of the colours also appear in DD1's favourite skirt. And then I wondered, why should I have to make socks with this? What if I made a child version of Baby Legs? She could wear them with the skirt, maybe over white tights, and it would look super-cute and swizz.

So I cast on.

I went for at least three inches wondering when the colourway would cycle around to the beginning again, until I remembered that I'd read on a number of blogs that Trekking doesn't repeat! So I became zen with the idea of fraternal leggings, and continued on.



They are going to look awesome when they're finished. I'll post exactly what I'm doing to make them once they're all done, but really, it's just two 2x2 ribbed tubes wide enough to fit your kid's thigh.

Self-patterning socks for moi/Turquoise child legs for DD1

My MIL, lovely lady that she is, gave us a sum of cash (among other things) for Christmas, and told us to go out and have fun with it. So on New Year's Eve, we packed up the kids and headed to Pizza Hut (DD1's favourite restaurant). We had an absolutely lovely time - DD1's behaviour was impeccable, and DD2 was actually interested in the different surroundings and did not make strange with the people making goo-goo eyes at her. (!!!) We did have an incident when she barked her chin on the table, but some Mummy Hugs(TM) soothed her in fairly short order.

Anyway, I was knitting on the turquoise self-striping socks I'd started a while ago while we were waiting for the pizza to arrive, and I started questioning why I was making them. I wasn't as jazzed by the striping as I thought I was going to be (why does sock yarn sometimes look so different in ball form than in sock form?) and didn't see myself loving the socks too much when they were finished. Then I thought about the leggings I was making for DD1 out of my new Trekking XXL, and suddenly...I knew I wanted to make leggings out of this turquoise yarn, too.

I thought about it a minute, ran the idea past DH (who was sad because he hates the idea of frogging anything), ripped out the needles and frogged the whole thing back.

The yarn now looks like this:

Oil-slick rainbow socks for moi

I started up with the Sockina yarn that DH gave me for Christmas:



What can I say, I just can't stand the idea of sock yarn hanging around not being on the needles, I guess.

Lacy Ribs Scarf

On Sunday, I actually managed a quick trip to the yarn store. (They're having a Boxing Week sale.) Among other reasons, I really wanted to see if I could find a second ball of the OnLine Nobile to be able to finish this scarf - I'm really stoked about writing up the pattern and starting to sell it. After much hunting in the back, with a lot of help from June (the owner), I found it!

I whipped up the rest of the scarf in fairly short order and had it finished by New Year's Eve. Now I just have to pose with it for pictures, write it up, and - shazam! - I can start selling it online. June also said she'd be willing to sell it as a kit in the shop. I'm so excited!

Mitred corners blanket for Raymond

The other thing I was hunting for on my yarn store trip was more yarn for this blanket, since the 10 balls I originally bought will not be enough. It took us a while (and great patience and diligence on June's part, thank you so much June), but we found more in THE SAME DYELOT, hoorayhoorayhooray. I bought three balls just to be safe. Next step: write up pattern, then follow it.

This has been an absolutely huge post, but I have one more item to talk about. It's very cool, so please bear with me.

A few weeks ago, someone contacted me on Ravelry. She'd seen, in my stash list, the leftover Bernat Sox in the "Army Hot" colourway from some socks I made for my husband a while back, and really, REALLY wanted it. She apologized if this was a rude thing to ask (since the yarn was not marked as for trade/sell), and wondered if there was any way she could pay or trade me for it.

Well, let's see...

• not rude at all
• delighted to hand it off to her
• no payment required

However, she insisted that she would send me something. Apparently she works at Webs (be still my beating heart), so she could pick me up something fun really easily.

It arrived yesterday. Know what it is?

That is 50 grams of Malabrigo Lace Baby Merino, my friends, in a gorgeous deep azure.

Crazy, right? I'm really not sure what universe I've entered into that this is a fair exchange for 12.5 grams of acrylic sock yarn, but, my guilt aside, I am incredibly happy to have it.

If anyone has any ideas of what I could do with a single skein of this, please feel free to suggest. A scarf is the obvious answer, but if there are more creative ideas out there, I'd love to hear 'em. I'd also like to hear any suggestions as to what I could POSSIBLY do to make it up to the Karma Gods for this incredible piece of largesse.

Back to reality

Thanks, guys, for the compliments on DD2's cuteness! I am actually quite surprised that we haven't all melted down into puddles around here yet, because she is cutecutecute like that pretty much all the time; and when you throw in the audio - adorable squeals and babbling - it just gets downright ridiculous. The best is when DD1 eggs on her giggles by making faces and jumping up and down. That's hands-down the BEST part of having more than one kid, when they find joy in each other. I am particularly lucky in that area because they adore each other. It's actually quite shocking, the lack of sibling jealousy/resentment in my home. (I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.)

(Okay, I'll pause here to get over my vorklemptness. Talk amongst yourselves. Startitis: sign of a creative and inspired knitter, or classic indication of a dilettantish procrastinator? Discuss.)

Alright, I'm back.

Although, speaking of cute, how great is this kid?

Well, as we all know, the crunch is coming down, with barely more than a month to go before The Big Holiday. Jo made me feel sooo much better about my current bout of Startitis by telling me I was not the only one. (Yes, I'm equally as bad!) The J really hit the nail on the head when she wrote, "non-pressure knitting isn't nearly so much fun as it is when you've got other things you should be doing!" How true it is. Lady, I'm sorry you are feeling a lack of inspiration right now...maybe you should try whipping up some Christmas knitting, that will probably make your other WIPs seem curiously appealing. Or, maybe look at other people's projects? (Hey, Elyse recently visited and found my Persian Tiles shawl inspirational, thank you so much, Elyse!) For inspiration, I prescribe a healthy dose of Ravelry. :)

Ragna for brother

No additional work has been done on this since the last entry, and I am resolved to keep it that way. I must admit that I had this crazy idea in the back of my head that if my gift idea for him this year didn't work out, I would somehow be able to whip up this sweater for him in time. (An intricately cabled sweater with a 50" chest and numerous other Christmas projects to complete. Yeah. My self-delusional abilities know no bounds.) However, I was fortunately able to get what I wanted to get him this year on eBay more-or-less within budget (a 1GB MP3/MP4 iPod knockoff...he will love it and I will be the best sister ever; it may even top last year's triumph, which was the Russell Peters 'Outsourced' DVD). Therefore, Ragna as a backup plan can now fall to the wayside.

Really.

Shut up, I'm serious.

Elizabethan Jacket for MIL

I did it. I got out the iron, ironing board and a wet towel, and did what had to be done. We now have pleats on the darts:



I also did a little steam ironing of the collar so it would generally stay put instead of sticking straight up.

As a bonus, I used the iron to hem the new kitchen curtains. They no longer drag on the ground - hurray!

I've also cut up the sleeve steeks. Next up: sewing them in. Blech.

Larry's Cabled Cashmere Pullover for DH

One sleeve down!



And one sleeve in progress:


(pictured next to sleeve #1 so you don't think I'm recycling photos)

Self-patterning socks #whatever for DH

I think someone's trying to tell me something. And that something is, "STOP WORKING ON THESE SOCKS ALREADY AND GET BACK TO YOUR PRIORITY KNITTING!!!"

First, as I mentioned in my last entry, I lost the fourth needle, so work stalled. But then I found it while taking photos for the blog, so work proceeded. Then I broke the tip off of one of the needles. Did work stall again? Hell, no. Turns out I can still use a DPN for socks if there's only one tip. Lifted increases are harder when the broken needle is the left hand needle, but it can be done. So I kept at it and made good progress. I really like the striping - I haven't even come to the end of a full colour cycle yet!



Unfortunately, yesterday evening I broke the other tip off of the same needle. And that definitely screws me.

Jack and Jill for DD1

I had originally started casting on with some leftover variegated yarn from another project. It's got lovely turquoises and lavenders in it, and it matched beautifully with some lavender sportweight that I have more than enough of kicking around in my stash. Alas, it became pretty obvious just casting on that there was not enough of the variegated left, so I had to try again with something else. Here's what I came up with:



Not bad. I think DD1 will like it. I just have to crochet the edges (including buttonholes) at the back, find some buttons and sew them on.

Inside-out comfort socks for BIL#1

Finished off the top ribbing on the leg today and cast off. I had DH (whose feet, as you may recall from previous descriptions of my detective work in this area, seem to be slightly longer and possibly thinner than his brother's) try it on. Alas, it was too long, although otherwise a good fit. I needed to remove six rows to make it fit DH, so I figured removing eight rows would be good for BIL. So I was faced with the prospect of cutting part of the foot and grafting it back together.

Most unfortunately, I decided to get fancy and graft before cutting. I thought this would make it easier. It did not. Once I got to the cutting part I found it was extremely hard to figure out where to cut, and I also found that some of my grafting had spliced some of the strands I was supposed to be getting rid of. All in all, it was an unmitigated disaster and I went through a fair bit of Grafting Hell before getting back on track. I now have one completed sock (although ends still have to be woven in).

Self-designed hat/mitts for Ariel Potwin

We got a call yesterday from my MIL, who told us that DH's cousin's wife had recently given birth to their second daughter. I had originally intended to make overalls for them, but I procrastinated on that way too badly, so instead I'm going to send them a hat-and-mittens set of my own design that I finished a while back but haven't given to anyone yet. It's very cute and I hope they'll like it.