Cool but Not

This winter, every time I crammed my hands into the mittens I bought to go with my faux suede coat, I wished for new ones. And now that I have them (courtesy my own DPNs), we are having another January thaw.



It won't last, though.



So I made myself a hat as well.



Pattern: Chunky Winter Set from The Knitter's Book of Yarn
Yarn: Cascade Jewel Hand Dyed in color #9887
Needles: US5 for the mittens, US8 for the hat



This yarn is a single ply "thick/thin" Peruvian wool that is rather inelastic, which I find difficult to knit - my hands get tired. The patterns are your standard mitten and hat patterns, quick to knit. I mixed the sizing for the mittens, casting on for a women's, but using the lengths for a men's - I have large hands but they are not "man hands" - and they took exactly one 100g skein. The hat is the men's size (large feet, large hands, large head) and it used about three-quarters of a skein. I'm happy with the results.

And now, to catch up with photos:

Here is the Noro Kureyon from Sarah Jane's that is destined to become a pair of Maine Morning Mitts.



One of the more sedate color combos, #215. (Don't you wish everyone would name the colorways?)

My order from Webs arrived, with the Art Yarns for Thuja socks. Color #119. *sigh*



I could not resist starting the socks last night. The pattern is a seed stitch rib, which of course does not show up very well in this photo.



And, finally, the Jaywalkers I started while waiting for the Art Yarns.



Tonight my daughter wore her Jaywalkers to yoga. Nice socks!

Frustrated Bloggee

Where I work, there are Internet security features in place that vary from month to month. I think what happens is, there is a virus alert and access to just about anything is clamped down. Then those with clout start complaining and things loosen up bit by bit, until the next alert. The upshot of this is, while I currently can read blogs at work (only during my free time, of course!), I cannot view photos that are in Flickr or PhotoBucket, nor can I post comments. By the time I get home, after spending the day on a computer, I am not too keen on more computer time, so I feel like quite a blog lurker. I try to catch up a bit on weekends, but, well, you know, life (and knitting) interfere.

Knitting like finishing the red-red-red sweater. Friday night I actually finished the knitting portion (ends remain to be woven in and the armpits need closing), but am still unsure about the snood-hood thing. It looks like a third arm. So Friday eve I wore the sweater around the house. The snood-hood is a nice feature... if you are outside. Inside, it has to be rolled up, so then it looks like a combination donut-cowl neck thing. This was okay until I had a hot flash. Yikes! So now I am debating removing the snood-hood and just having a funnel neck. Maybe I will wear it some more around the house today, before deciding. Or ask my fashion consultant, aka daughter. She has no qualms about telling me if something does not work.

Meanwhile, after the alpaca-as-sock-yarn fiasco, I got to wondering about the yarn I purchased for mittens. The yarn is distributed by Cascade and the label says "Jewel Hand Dyed". (It also says "avoid exposure to direct sunlight" which leaves one wondering about the dyes and dye methods used.) Examining the yarn, one sees that it is what Clara Parker calls in her Knitter's Book of Yarn a "thick/thin single". So what's it good for? Well, turn the page and one will find a pattern for a "Chunky Winter Set" using thick/thin single yarn! So I am in the middle of knitting the mittens, and loving them. (BTW, there is an error in the mitten pattern: row 1 of the gusset should include a M1 after the first pm.)

(Does anyone else have trouble getting mittens to come out the same size? Has anyone tried knitting two mittens at a time on circular needles? I have Knitting Circles around Socks from the library and am wondering if the same technique would work with mittens.)

I made another stop at Sarah Jane's Yarn Shoppe Saturday. This time the store was pleasantly busy, with a class meeting on the couches by the fireplace and a few women running back and forth between Sarah Jane's and the Bead Source next door. I was able to peruse the shelves in a more leisurely fashion and ended up buying a skein of Noro Kureyon for a pair of Maine Morning Mitts.

More news: I joined Ravelry. Or at least, I applied. We shall see how long it takes.

And I am now in the Knitting Bloggers ring! All I need to do is figure out how to get the button graphic to appear. Are there other knitting rings you would recommend?

Must. Knit. Sock.

As you may recall, I purchased some Classic Elite Inca Marl to knit some socks for my son-in-law. After I made this purchase, I read a review (at Knitter's Review, natch) of a cousin of this yarn, Inca Alpaca, and Clara Parker declared, Don't let the yarn store owner tell you this yarn is not for socks, as one of her favorite pairs was knit with this plus some Jaggerspun lace weight. That was good enough for me, so I started sock #1. But I did not get very far before I decided that without a second yarn to provide body, the Inca Marl was just not going to do. I think this yarn would have a nice drape, but who wants socks that drape? Between the yarn failure and my needle crisis, I got cranky and just gave up and ordered the Artyarn used in the pattern and some needles from Webs. So there.

But I still really, really, really wanted to work on some socks, so I started a second pair of Jaywalkers, using Austermann Step (mit Aloe Vera und Jojoba Ol). I had made a pair for my daughter (seen here), but these will in the larger size for my Sasquatch feet.

With a pair of socks on the needles, I now feel much better. Ah!

Mass Ave Knit Shop

My NDP (Non-Domestic Partner - much more descriptive than SO) and I decided to get out of town for the day, so we drove down to Indy yesterday. And, as is my MO, I found me a yarn shop to visit while we were "in the area" - Mass Ave Knit Shop. This is like the only LYS I know of anywhere that is open on Sunday. And let it be known that it is not on Mass Ave. And you enter through the back door. And it has lots of yarn, so I bought some.

This is Cascade Yarns Jewel Hand Dyed (color 9887), which are destined to become mittens for me, to go with my faux suede coat.



It is a bulky yarn of variable thicknesses, giving it a homespun appearance.

And this is Nashua Handknits Snowbird (color NSB.9155, aka "Blue"), which will become a thank-you gift for the neighbor across the street who has been keeping my driveway clear this winter.



It is 70% wool and 30% alpaca.

And I bought another skein of Cascade 220 Paints (color 9926), so I can make me a "bubble wrap" hat to match my Math Geek scarf.

And I checked out the Kaffe Fassett sock yarn, a special design line of Regia. I was hoping for a self-patterning sock yarn, one that would produce socks that looked like a granny square afghan or crazy quilt. But the yarn is basically self-striping, in either "landscape" or "mirage" motif. Lovely colors, but I passed it up.

A lot of the yarn in Mass Ave was what I think of as "novelty" yarn, but beyond the usual eyelash and ribbon. I will plead ignorance on what these yarns are like to knit, and what one makes with them. Maybe someone can clue me in?

While in the shop, I overheard one of the employees talking about how he was demonstrating spinning at the library when someone told him they had read about him on Ravelry. Well, he wanted to know what Ravelry was and, more importantly, what they were saying about him. I clued him in to Ravelry, but I neglected to get his name, so I don't know what they were saying about him either.

After Mass Ave, we went to the Indiana State Museum, which didn't have anything fiber related... yet. Check it out!



And if you time your visit right, you can see this at the same time:



Mark your calendars!

And now, the finished dog sweater. I had to adjust the leg holes, and I resewed the seams with a mattress stitch. It tends to ride backwards, though, so I may try to do something with the neck, to help keep it in place.



Betsy is wondering, "Does this sweater make me look fat?"

Sarah Jane's Yarn Shoppe

My SO was in the nabe yesterday, so he stopped in at Sarah Jane's Yarn Shoppe even though it wasn't open yet. I thought they were open. I thought yesterday was their grand opening. He said he was the only one there, so I thought they were getting off to a slow start. I stopped by today, thinking I would have a quiet browse through the yarn. HA! The place was packed, and not just with shoppers. A lot of women were just standing around, sipping punch and yakking away. I signed up to win a gift certificate, squeezed me some yarn while chanting "Excuse me, excuse me," looked for a solution to my needle crisis (nope), then got the hell out of there. All I can say is, Wow! They are not getting off to a slow start at all. Whew! I will have to return when things quiet down a bit.

P.S. Their website is still under construction.

I Feel Pretty (and Pretty Left Out)

In case you haven't noticed or you are new here, I updated the look of my blog. I maintain a blog for a local non-profit, and in the process of setting that one up, I was exposed to the new customizable Blogger, which is much easier to work with than raw html. Also, while I am not going to post a "101 Things in 1001 Days" list, I do have some lists I want to use, to help me keep track of what I plan to knit this year. This new style should be more helpful for that as well.

Meanwhile, despite my bad group karma, I continue to try to join knitting blog rings. I have received email and html from two, but have yet to be accepted in either. I know I'm odd, but c'mon! It's just knitting!

The red-red-red sweater is nearing completion. I worked the increase rows for the snoody neck and tried it on - perfect! Now I just need to make the neck longer. I'm not convinced I will like the end result, but if not, I will shorten it to a length I do like. That's the great thing about yarn: if you don't like what you knit, frog it!

It is extremely cold this weekend, so in anticipation of the dropping temps, I knit the dog a sweater, out of yarn left over from Sean's scarf. Poor Betsy has been less than enthusiastic about her fittings, just can't understand why I keep bothering her with this small blanket of yarn.



I'm still fiddling with the size, so it's not quite done.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I meant to post at least once this past weekend, but the days were just packed, in a good way. After a weekend like that, though, it was more difficult than usual to return to work today. I felt like I needed another day just for me.

The busyness started Friday afternoon, when I decided to stop at one of our new LYS's, Knitting Off Broadway. My first impression of this store is that it is less of a shop and more of a yarn boutique, like maybe the Von Maur of knitting. I poked around for a while, but I didn't have any particular yarn in mind and nothing caught my eye. Actually, I was hoping to buy some DPN's (more about my needle crisis later), but KoB is needle-light. So I walked out of a yarn store without making a purchase - unheard of! It would happen one more time before the weekend was out.

Saturday I finished the Math Geek scarf.



(I really need to sharpen my photography skills. Or develop some patience when taking pictures. Or learn better how to digitally enhance them.)



Details are:

• Pattern: Math Geek Scarf from the 2007 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar, March 21.
  
• Yarn: Cascade 220 Paints, color no. 9926 (it's maroon and black)
  
• Needle size: US7

The dimensions of my scarf were 3.5" x 58" before blocking. I tried to use up as much yarn as possible, so made 14 large triangles instead of the 11 the pattern called for. Ending with an even number also affected how I knit the last small triangle, but it turned out A-OK. I wore it to work today. Very warm and cozy.

This was the weekend for NFL division playoffs, and we watched the Colts (lose) Saturday night. Needing something to work on during the game, I selected another item from my private yarn store: a skein of Schaefer Yarns Anne in "Powder Puff" for a shawl. Quite a while ago, I started a shawl with this yarn, but the project just did not grab me and after it sat in neglect for a while, I frogged it. I'm liking this pattern much better, but I can't tell you where I got it; I photocopied the pattern from a library book but the pages don't include the name of the book on them. It might have been something like Scarf Style? The name of the pattern is "Shetland Triangle" and it calls for 548 yards of fingering weight yarn, so Anne is perfect for it.

I was feeling a little guilty about starting this shawl when I keep promising my daughter that I will work on her vintage lace top, but actually this project will be a good warm-up for the top. I had been working lace in worsted weight yarn. Working with fingering is challenging but should get me in shape for the (gulp) Rowan Kidsilk Haze.

Another project I want to get started on are the Classic Elite Inca Marl socks for my much-appreciated son-in-law. (On Sunday he installed my reverse osmosis filter system, which lead to replacing some of the plumbing under the kitchen sink as it had corroded and started to leak just when he thought he was done.) But I am having a needle crisis.

One problem is that I like to work both socks at the same time, so I need two sets of DPNs, but I have only one set of the size US6 that I want to use. Of course. And they are INOX, which I am not liking much these days because another set of them (the US5's) developed a tackiness that makes the yarn stick and throws off my gauge. I was hoping to find something at Knitting Off Broadway, but their DPNs were INOX and bamboo. I hate bamboo. But I like my aluminum needles, so I stopped at Joann's on Saturday, thinking I would pick up a couple of sets of Susan Bates. But they come in packages of 4 (I'd prefer 5 per package) and through the packaging I could see that the finish was flawed. Aargh! Again, I left a (sort of) yarn store without making a purchase.

Meanwhile, this weekend I was also fretting meditating on the red-red-red sweater. I reached the tentative end of the body, took it off the needles, and tried it on.



Well, at least it looks like a sweater.



But the neck was really boatneck-like, if you know what I mean. Very high in front, and wide. It later occurred to me that part of its shape was probably due to the fact I did not have the neck cinched up at all, but still. How should I move forward? I searched through all my pattern books without finding any ideas, so I set it aside. Again.

Today I stopped at the library and found on the new non-fiction shelf Suss Design Essentials, which amazingly has a sweater with a snood, just like I have been contemplating. So now I have an idea of what to do next and also have a little faith it might actually work out.

And then there was yoga, laundry, pet poop patrol, dog walking, wild bird feeding, and friends and family. Like I said, a very full weekend.

A Plethora of Yarn Stores

Okay, maybe not a plethora. But I haven't yet visited Knitting Off Broadway when I received an invite to the grand opening of Sarah Jane's Yarn Shoppe. Since I was in the neighborhood, I scoped out their location on Sunday. Located in a strip mall, they won't have to worry about parking. There is a dance studio in the same strip mall; I wonder if they will offer classes to the moms while they wait on their daughters.

My own personal yarn store is already proving its usefulness. The red-red-red sweater is too big and bulky to be portable and I'm a little tired of the Blue Lagoon and I am taking a short break from socks, so I was fishing about for something new to work on. Testing the personal yarn store concept, I wandered into my Home Office and voila! There was the yarn and pattern for the Math Geek scarf from the 2007 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar. Perfect!

But it is almost too hot to knit, at least with wool. It is not unusual for us to have a January thaw, but 60+ degrees is ridiculous.

Change o' Plans

I decided that although the Monkey in Birches socks fit me, they fit my daughter better. So they are hers now. I plan to make myself a pair, a little larger, in "Serengeti". On the Knitty forum I found suggestions on how to alter the pattern for larger feet, so that should not be a problem.

Here is a recap of the details:

Pattern: Monkey from Knitty
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "Birches"
Needles: US1

The socks, completed but unblocked:



Ordinarily, I don't bother blocking socks, but I wanted to try to capture the stitchwork, so here they are blocked:



Unfortunately, my camera and/or photography skills do not do justice to the beauty of these socks, even with a close-up:



Here they are, in situ:



As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there is a new scarf. I needed a break from the red-red-red sweater, so I whipped up this scarf for my SO.



Again, the beauty does not show through. Details are:

Pattern: Pine Cone Scarf from Knitting Daily
Yarn: Di.Ve Autunno in "Navajo" (very soft and cuddly!)
Needles: US11
Size: About 5" x 60" (without fringe)

Re my attempt to join the knitting blog ring, I apparently fell through the cracks as the links don't work yet. I'm not the only one, so maybe sometime in the future I will be an official member.

Domestic Goddess

Not really, but periodically the house gets into such a bad state that even I can't stand it. I have found that the easiest way to get things put into order is to introduce a new element to the home dynamics.

One such element is my new refrigerator. Meet the Black Hole.



The previous refrigerator was almond, so this one startles me with its black sides and reflective door. Since I am used to seeing an almond wall in the refrigerator nook, the blackness feels like nothingness and from my peripheral vision I think something is missing, so I keep having to look at the refrigerator to get my bearings. It's a little disconcerting, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. And if mildew grows on the gasket, it won't show.

Anyway, what happened with the advent of a new refrigerator is that I threw out a lot of wildly outdated jars of crap and frozen blobs of something (chicken?), which makes the new refrigerator seem more roomy even though it is the same size as the old one. And in the process of cleaning out the old fridge, I made a mess on the kitchen floor, so I vacuumed there, which led to vacuuming the whole house. And since strangers were going to be in my kitchen, I cleaned off (most of) the kitchen counters. Not that you can tell today. After all, two days have passed since the delivery. And I felt like cooking today: oatmeal cookies (to use up the oatmeal and wheat germ I found in the freezer) and black bean and yam quesadillas (to use up the yam that had been sitting on the counter since Thanksgiving).

Another new element to the house is wire cubes (on sale at Target for $12.99):



I took this picture last night, after wrestling with the assembly of the cubes. Today I sorted through my stash and loaded much of it onto the shelves. Then I sorted through all my patterns and put them in notebooks. In between, I managed to create my own knitting kits, matching yarn and patterns. It will be like having my own personal yarn store!

And some knitting was going on as well. Poor Fern staked out a piece of the couch as best she could.



In this picture are the following: the red-red-red sweater, the Blue Lagoon baby blanket, a scarf (more on that tomorrow), Sensational Knitted Socks, and the pattern for Monkey socks. And poor fat friendly Fern.

The Year in Review

I started blogging about my knitting over a year ago and recently compiled a list of everything I have knitted in that time. All I can say is, Wow! If it weren't for this blog, I would have no record of all those knits and purls (and single crochets and double crochets, etc., etc., and so forth). Well, that's not quite accurate. Originally I tried to keep a project notebook, but that rapidly fell by the wayside. A blog is much more fun, plus I can post photos and share with my cyber friends.

Anyway, I won't bore you by listing all those projects, but I do want to say a few things about them. Like how many of them were dishcloths and socks. And like how almost everyone I know now has at least one handknit scarf if not also a hat and armwarmers and legwarmers. The most challenging projects were the Ladylike Lace gloves and the swallowtail shawl. Both projects sometimes reduced me to tears. But once completed, both projects not only gave me a real sense of accomplishment but also raised my skill level. And as I have become more skilled, I have become more adventuresome and more relaxed about the outcome.

But my favorite part of knitting and crocheting is giving it away. Everyone on the receiving end has treated my gifts as something special, even when the gift was simple or flawed or silly. Something made with one's hands is also made with the heart. I'm grateful that my friends and family recognize and value that.

So, knit on in 2008!

New Year Resolutions - 2008

Last year's New Year resolution - to do something fun each month - was a success, but I want to do something different this year. I'm sticking to the one-and-only-one motif, but this year my resolution is to manage my vacation days better.

Unlike some of my co-workers, I always take all the vacation I have coming to me, but it seems like the past couple of years, I return from vacation more tired than when I left. Several vacations were family-obligation vacations, and with my oldest brother planning a family reunion, there will be one of those this year. But even destination vacations can be exhausting because I am driven by the need to see as much as possible in the time allotted.

I need a vacation just for vegging. Those seem to be camping vacations, where we have to do a lot of prep, but once we are at the campsite and all set up, we can just kick back and relax. The problem is we like to rent a pop-up camper (it's as close as you can get to sleeping outside without having to sleep on the ground) and right now neither my SO nor I have a tow vehicle. If only we could get a rental place to deliver the pop-up to our campsite.

Anyway, that's my resolution, to make better use of my four weeks plus three days of vacation time. What are your resolutions?

Fit to be Tied

Well, the Monkeys in Birches socks will fit me. Last night I knit most of one foot and slipped it on and voila! If I were the type to keep score, I would have said it was my turn for a pair of socks anyway.

The fit of the red-red-red sweater/hoodie is another matter. While nearing the armpits of the body, I found myself wondering, Is this going to be big enough? I checked the gauge (correct), measured the width (difficult to do with the lace and the circular needles), and finally took it off the needles so I could actually try it on. Well. It is a bit... fitted. Because of the lace up the front, I definitely need to wear something under it, and that something had better be form-fitting because there will not be much space between the sweater and me. I wondered why it fit so snug, so I went over the size info. Uh-oh. Where it said 42 inch bust, it meant that was the actual measurement of the hoodie, whereas I took it to mean the size was for a 42-inch bust. Argh!

So. What to do? I decided to plow ahead while trying to convince myself that blocking will add an inch (to the sweater, not to me) and that maybe I can lose 10 pounds really, really fast. (HA!) And I will stop referring to it as a hoodie since it is definitely going to be more sweater-like.

On a sad note, today is the last day of my xmas vacation. I have to go back to work tomorrow. *sigh* I had a great time the past 10 days, partly because instead of fouling my time off with to-do lists, then stressing over how much I did not get done, I just went with the flow and pretended I was retired and time was not of the essence. Not a bad way to live.

Knitting Today

Yesterday my SO and I ventured forth, heading north to a LYS one of my co-workers had visited recently. Knitting Today has been in business for about 15 years, the first eight online-only. The owner (whose name I neglected to get) is friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable, and the yarn selection wide. Some of the brands I was familiar with, but many were new to me. I came prepared to buy, though, and buy I did.

Here we have Zarina Print "Blues" which is a merino superwash destined to become a baby blanket.



I haven't even cast on yet, but I can tell this yarn will be a joy to work with, as it has a nice spring to it.

And my SO picked out this Di.Ve Autunno, for a new scarf:



It's also merino.

And this Classic Elite Inca Marl in "Tobacco Road" is for a special pair of socks for my special son-in-law:



Mmmmm - alpaca. My daughter will make sure these are hand washed.

Knitting Off Broadway is supposed to have their grand opening today, but the weather is so crappy (slush is falling from the sky) that I did not try to go. Their website is not up yet, so I'm wondering if they are ready for prime time.

And I learned from Knitting Today that there is another yarn store opening in the Fort, on North Anthony. My informants have been notified to keep an eye out.

Meanwhile, I am almost ready to attach the sleeves of the red-red-red sweater-hoodie and start the yoke.



Besides being seamless, this sweater is destined to be purl-less as well. To accomplish this, the hood may have to become a snood. We'll see how that works out. Every project is an experiment!

Two Steps Back, Two Steps Forward

I let the red-red-red sweater/hoodie ferment for a few weeks and finally faced the fact that, despite my original protestations, I could not go forward until I went back. Those extra stitches would not be apparent to anyone else, but they were right in the middle of the front of the garment and I would always know they were there. So yesterday I decided to make like a frog and rip-it back 18 rounds. And, actually, picking up 190 stitches in the round and reknitting those 18 rows (3420 stitches) was not all that bad. Now I can move forward.

This morning a little snow fell, so everything has a thin coat of white icing. I'm glad my son got out of Dodge before the roads slicked up, but whenever he leaves, it's like a little knife to the heart. I would support my kids in the pursuit of their dreams, even if it meant their moving halfway around the world, but I take a secret pleasure in the fact they haven't wandered too far afield.

NaKniSweMo?

I don't know which came first, the novel or the blog-entry-a-day thingy for November, but someone wants us to knit a sweater during the month of November as well as write a blog entry each day and write a novel (and who knows what else). Do these people think of November as a particularly slow month? With Thanksgiving and the beginning of the xmas season? I think January or February would be better for all these activities. Those are two very slow and boring months around here, especially since we get so little snow.

Yesterday, the weather was just right for a hike in the woods, though. My son and I headed for Vandolah Nature Preserve for some fresh air and a little exercise. Neither of us had been there before, but it has a nice walking trail and interesting land and creeks and a marsh. And, unfortunately, a highway that runs through it. There was enough traffic to be disturbing; I can't imagine what it is like on a regular business day. Still, walking amongst the trees, inspecting animal tracks, listening to birds, etc. is very restorative.

Last night, my daughter came over and the three of us played Uno and laughed until I nearly wet my pants. A perfect end to xmas day.

Oh, and I knitted some on the Monkeys in Birches socks. The heels are turned and I'm into the homestretch.

Surprise!

At last, the xmas surprise can be revealed. But first, a little bit about xmas tradition.

My maternal grandparents were from Denmark, and my mother carried on a few Danish xmas customs while I was growing up. The one we kids liked best was opening presents on xmas eve instead of xmas day. When I married, I suggested continuing this tradition, but my husband preferred xmas morning.

Well, he is my ex now, and my daughter now has in-law duty on xmas day, so a logical step this year was to reinstitute the xmas eve tradition. We had our xmas dinner last night - which must have been good because all conversation stopped while we filled our pie holes (and there is a recipe at the end of this post) - then my son started a fire in the rarely used fireplace...



... and we opened presents.

And was my daughter surprised when she pulled Elizabeth out of her xmas bag!



The story behind Elizabeth is a mystery. None of us can remember where she came from or why she rarely had any clothes. I think she may have been a substitute for a Cabbage Patch doll. Except for the Magic Marker on her face, she is very lifelike, so much so that I was afraid to leave her in view from the picture window lest someone see her and call Child Protective Services about that baby that is just laying there on the coffee table - and without a leg! (Her legs come off periodically.) And, in case you are wondering, the Magic Marker was a misguided attempt to give Elizabeth some hair, which my daughter blames on her brother. Natch.

Anyway, when my daughter handed over Elizabeth at Thanksgiving so I could fix her leg, I got the idea of knitting her an outfit. I used the yarn leftover from the Neverending Afghan and a free pattern from Lion Brand called "Cabled Baby Set".

The odd thing about this pattern is everything is knit flat and seamed together. I'm not very good at sewing seams, though, so I need to redo a couple that turned out particularly awful. Also, I got confused about turning the ribbing and stitched that up backwards, too. So I still have Elizabeth while I correct my mistakes.

Here is a gallery of the xmas surprise:

The first hat I have knit flat:



I was concerned about running out of pink yarn, so I striped the sleeves and back of the sweater:



Besides the above hat and sweater, the outfit includes pants and booties:



And here is Elizabeth, aka Chuckie, in her new xmas outfit:



And a view from the back:



And into the bag she goes!



And, as promised, a recipe. I don't know where I got this, and they are not a Danish tradition, but they are really, really, really good.

Miniature Pecan Pies

Crust:
      1/2 c. butter or oleo
      1 3oz. pkg cream cheese
      1 c. sifted flour

Let cream cheese and butter soften at room temperature. Blend. Stir in flour. Chill about 1 hour. Shape into 1-inch balls (about 2 dozen) and place in ungreased mini muffin cups. Press dough in bottom and up sides of cup.

Filling:
      1 egg
      3/4 c. brown sugar
      1 T. butter
      1 t. vanilla
      dash of salt
      2/3 c. chopped pecans

Beat together egg, sugar, butter, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Add half of the pecans and pour into dough cups. Top with remaining pecans. Bake at 325 until filling is well set, about 30 minutes. Cool, then remove from pans.

And put them where the dog cannot reach them!

Hoppy Halidays!

Whew! After battling a sinus infection for the past week or so, Saturday night I came down with a 24-hour bug of some sort. Suspiciously, my SO was sick as well, and we contemplated that it was something we ate, but we had not eaten anything in common. He did not get as sick, but yesterday I was down for the count. It gave me an excuse to glue my butt to the couch, watch football (very boring games), and stitch up the xmas surprise. Pix soon, I promise.

Speaking of pix, I don't think I ever posted a pic of the Jaywalkers.



They turned out too small for me, but the pattern has instructions for a larget size, so I will make myself a pair. Eventually. Details on this pair can be found here.

In other knitting news, I joined the Knitting Blog ring (see links on sidebar), but I (obviously) don't have a graphic for it yet.

And I am still working on the Monkeys in Birches socks, the red-red-red sweater/hoodie, the lace shawl, the Blue Lagoon baby blanket. But they will have to wait until another day, because I have baking, cooking, and cleaning to do.

Enjoy the holidays!

Sweating It

I finished the Trekking socks with 7g of yarn remaining. As you recall, this skein weighed in a bit short, and toward the end, I kept eyeing the remainder, wondering if I would have to frog back a bit or switch to another sock yarn to finish the toes. But no, plenty of yarn leftover.



Once again, I worked from both ends of the skein.



Details:
Yarn: Zitron Trekking XXL in color 82
Needles: US1
Pattern: Six-stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks using twin rib stitch

And finishing one pair of socks freed up the needles for another pair:



The yarn is the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "birches" (and I weighed the skein, just to see, and it is a generous 105g). The pattern is "Monkey" from Knitty. It seems like I am knitting it too tight but the gauge is right-on, at least as far as I can tell with this zigzag lace stitch, but we shall see. If the socks are too small for me, I am sure my daughter will give them a home. And then I can play with the pattern to make a pair big enough for my gigundo feet and calves.

One reason I have made such nice progress on Monkey in Birches is I have been ignoring everything else and I stayed home today (okay, that's two reasons). My on-again, off-again bug decided to turn into a sinus infection. So I actually (some would say finally) went to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor because you have to beg for an appointment, and then once you get the appointment and show up on time, you wait forever to see the doctor, and then frequently his nurse is on the verge of a meltdown, etc. But today it was different, maybe because he has a new nurse. And a new haircut. My stylist says it's "in" but it shouldn't be, at least not for men in their 40's. It would be like my wearing a mini skirt. Oh, well. At least I was in and out of there in 20 minutes, a new all-time record. But then I took my Rx to Walgreens, where there was a 40-minute wait. I waited at home.

P.S. Today my neighbor across the street ran his snow blower up and down my drive again. I have the best neighbors!

A Finished Object!

Yesterday, with the weather predictions being what they were, I decided it would be prudent to finish the Lopi mittens. As you may recall, they had turned out different sizes, so I actually reknit most of mitten #2, but they were still different. Well, so what? They are for me to use shoveling snow. End of story.



I wore them to walk the dog, and they were quite... airy. My hands were warm enough, but the breeze moved right through the fabric. Hmmm. Maybe they will felt up a bit with use.

Well, I got to use them today.



My neighbor across the street bought a new snow blower yesterday, and he could not resist my driveway, but I still got out there for a while with my back-saving snow shovel. And the mittens were perfect. Usually, my hands get hot and sweaty, but the mittens repel moisture while letting my hands breathe. Just right!

Now that I am inside, warm and dry, I am hoping to finish the Trekking socks today as well, because look what arrived in the mail the other day:

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "Birches"...



... Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in "Serengeti"...



... and Interlacements Toasty Toes in color 202.



I have a tendency to pick paint and yarn by their names, but what would you call that last one? Turkish Turban? Persian Carpet? Intense, is what I call it.

So, you see why I have to finish the Trekking socks, don't you? That, or buy more DPNs.

Yoga Yogi

Last night my daughter and I went to the Kachmann Mind Body Institute to participate in a "Yoga Basics" class. We like! The facility downtown includes an art gallery which is where the class takes place. So not only are you surrounded by artwork, there are no mirrors! The last yoga class I participated in was in a dance studio and there were entire walls of mirrors; when I performed the Triangle, I could see how my face sagged - I looked like I was having a stroke. Anyway, we like Kachmann. The Lafayette location is near where my daughter lives and they are opening a studio at Lutheran Hospital, which is near where each of us works, and they are going to have a third location at the Dupont Hospital, near where I live. No only convenient for us, emergency services are a step away!

I located the two locations where I inadvertently added stitches to the red-red-red sweater/hoodie. Whatever I did, I did it twice, so I am considering frogging back to the most recent one (only six rows - wah!), just to see what it was I did wrong so I don't do it again. Considering it. No forward progress until I make my decision.

Yesterday at lunch I did another 10 rounds on the Trekking socks, and this time it took only about 40 minutes. Maybe I just need to get used to socks again, after working on projects using US7 (sweater, xmas surprise) and US10 (blanket) size needles.

During NaPoBloMo, I was able to post to my blog from my computer at work. A good thing, too, or I would never have made it. But now, the Powers That Be have cranked up the Internet security (again!), so I can read blogs but I cannot update mine or leave comments on others. Curses! Foiled again! I'm contemplating switching over to WordPress, as that site is reachable... so far - there are no guarantees. And if I wait awhile, someone higher up the food chain than me will complain, and access to blogger will return.

Hiberknition

I am not a native Hoosier but I grew up in the Midwest, so when I first arrived in Indiana, the almost constant gray of its winter was a bit of a surprise. I am not affected by SAD, but still. This weather is growing tiresome. If I could stay home and hibernate, it would not seem so bad, but I actually have to go out and drive to work while slush falls from the sky. Ick.

The missing stitch on the red-red-red (are you getting tired of that phrase yet?) sweater/hoodie magically reappeared, but now I have two extra stitches. There is nothing like the body of a 190-stitch-per-round sweater to make one lose one's attachment to perfectionism. No way am I ripping out 1900 stitches of stockinette (I think that is where the offending stitches multiplied - it's hard to tell because of the lace pattern crawling up the front). Jeeze - I never thought about just how many stitches a sweater takes. Hmmm... 190 stitches per round, 6 rounds per inch, tap-tap-tap on the calculator - that's 17,100 stitches just for the below-the-armpit section of the torso. Yikes! Some things are better left unknown.

The Blue Lagoon blanket is also loosening my grip on perfectionism, at least as far as slavishly following a pattern goes. I made some modifications to the Sweet Cherries pattern because I wanted to carry the yarn up the side but it was too difficult with odd numbers of rows for some colors. The Blue Lagoon does not suffer from this problem, but the pattern looks like water, so I'm going with a more random version of the pattern repeats. Just for fun. After all, it is all garter stitch, so I feel compelled to inject something different to stave off the boredom. And I am not carrying the yarn up the side; instead, I break off and knit the ends in as I go. This results in less yarn wrangling. The blues are very soothing, too, so this is an enjoyable diversion.

Unlike the Trekking socks. Yesterday at lunch, it took me nearly an hour to knit ten rounds on the sole. That's 780 stitches, 780 tiny stitches on 4 tiny needles. This is why we knitters work on multiple projects at one time. When one is driving us nuts, we can give it a time out and pick up its jealous sister for a while.

I Love Sundays

The weather outside is frightful, so it's a good thing I have no place to go and nothing to do, just like most Sundays.







Even though the power went out briefly this morning - it was sleeting at the time, and shortly afterwards there were sirens, so someone either hit a pole and caused the outage or the outage may have contributed to an accident - things are now cozy and warm inside, where I am knitting up a storm to counter the ice storm warning crawling across the bottom of the TV screen.

The surprise xmas gift is coming along nicely. (No pix - it's a surprise.) The Trekking socks are past the gusset.



I have used three skeins of yarn on my six-skein red-red-red sweater/hoodie, so that means I'm half done, right?





And yet, I could not resist starting something new.



In the past few years, several neices and nephews have married and I'm a little surprised none has announced an impending pregnancy yet, but I want to be prepared. When I first started knitting again, I went a little nuts and bought enough Lion Brand Baby Soft and Microspun yarn to make three blankets. I completed the Sweet Cherries quite a while ago, and it is still sitting in the FO drawer, awaiting a recipient. It must be lonely because now I am working on the Blue Lagoon. I'm not really a fan of Microspun because it is splitty and the skein falls apart too easily. I solved the latter problem by stuffing the skein into the leg of an old nylon. Kind of weird looking, but it does the trick. Other than remembering which colors to switch to when, this is a no-brainer project that I may take to work and just keep there. On US 10 needles, it goes fairly quickly, too.

Oh, and here is a belated bday gift from my SO:



It's a turntable for big cones of yarn!

Hmmm. Weather frightful --> fire delightful. Maybe it's a good day to use the fireplace.



Or not.

The Case of the Missing Stitch

I was working on the red-red-red sweater/hoodie last night and, as is my wont, I decided to count stitches to make sure there were still 190 on the needles. Oops. Only 189. Since I am counting-challenged, I checked again. Still 189. I inspected the fabric, looking in vain for the dropped stitch. Was I blind? Had I miscounted from the start, and on every recounted round since? It was driving me mad, so I gave up and went to bed.

This afternoon, I decided I would find that missing stitch if it killed me. I gathered some notions to help mark off the stitches and was about to start parsing the whole thing, when I decided to count stitches one more time. 190. Hmmm. I told you I was counting-challenged! In my defense, last night I was coming down with a cold, which necessitated staying home from work today to sleep away the germs. So, either I miscounted, or the missing stitch magically appeared after being AWOL for almost 24 hours.

A little tired of the red-red-red, I switched back to the Trekking socks (remember those? I have been neglecting them of late.) I had started the gusset decreases on one sock, and decided to pick up the gusset stitches on the other before continuing with any decreases. Believe is or not, somehow in the process of picking up stitches for the gusset, I managed to lose a stitch on not one, but both socks. This won't be a problem until I reach the toe decreases, where the instep will have 39 stitches and the sole only 38. Maybe if I sleep on this problem, the missing stitches will magically appear. Again.

Because I Deserve It

I live in a three-bedroom house. I sleep in the master bedroom (natch!) but the other two bedrooms are generally useless except as repositories of stuff, one for mostly yarn-type stuff, the other mostly paper-like stuff. When my son came to visit at Thanksgiving, I cleared out the yarn-stuff room enough for him to sleep there. But one night, after he and a bud were out partaking of adult beverages, he and said bud had to shovel the paper-stuff off the bed in the paper-stuff room so the bud could crash there. So I decided one bedroom should become a paperless, yarnless guest bedroom.

Which means the other bedroom can now become My Home Office!

Sunday morning I took to shoving furniture about, so now the guest bedroom contains both a double bed and a twin bed (and a fold-up cot under the twin bed, but god knows where that could be set up) and a used-to-be-a-printer-stand-but-is-temporarily-an-ugly-nightstand-with-a-cute-lamp and an old rocking chair. (There is also a file cabinet in there, acting as another temporary-nightstand-with-a-cute-lamp, but that may get moved to My Home Office.) The closet is full of old computer equipment (can you spell "Bernoulli"?) and retired purses and boxes of paper-stuff that is not old enough to shred.

You would think that right now My Home Office(!) would look like a yarn and paper disaster, but for some reason it does not. At least, not yet. It contains the Big Desk (which fits through doorways only after the doors are lifted from their hinges) and the table-and-chair set that predates my marriage and two office chairs (one of which sports mystery stains) and a file cabinet and many bookshelves full of books I have not looked at in years plus two boxes of books I have not looked at for at least a decade. The closet contains camping equipment that I swear we will use again someday, more old computer equipment, and yarn.

For some reason, I am immensely pleased with the guest bedroom and My Home Office. The alteration of these two rooms represents a paradigm shift of some kind that I have yet to define. It feels good.

Knitting Off Broadway

We almost have a LYS again! The grand opening of Knitting Off Broadway is scheduled for after xmas, but they had a "trunk show" this past Friday and Saturday. I stopped by to check it out, but there was not much to check out just yet. Too bad, because the flyer led me to believe that there would at least be some notions for sale. Instead, there were knitted sweaters to try on. Now there's a concept: being able to try on a sweater to see how it looks before knitting for weeks on end to find out it is not "you".

The store was a challenge to find, partly because I did not read the flyer carefully. I saw the "near Jefferson and Broadway" part and I knew where that was, but I did not realize that the shop was actually on a side street (the "off" in "Off Broadway" - duh). The side street is not much more than a glorified alley, and parking will be a challenge, especially on Saturdays when they have classes scheduled all day long. Tucked away where they are lends an air of exclusivity to the shop as well. We'll see how that works out. But their hours are better (for me, at least), they plan to offer lots of upscale yarn, and it sounds like the co-owners have assistants and instructors lined up.

Here's to their success!