From our family to yours!!

Happy Holidays!!!

So now that the bulk of the Christmas knitting is done I’m jumping back on the “all about me” bandwagon. It’s true. I am a selfish knitter by design. There are just so many things to make and so little time! That’s also the reason I don’t knit many patterns more than once. Too many things to try and not enough lifetime to do them all in. So for now I’m going back to this:

A sweater of my own design. It will have a steek down the front. It will have colorwork. I hope it will have a deep V or zigzag design in the yoke. I have lots of dreams, but not much to show for it yet. And if I’m going to meet my 2008 goal of attempting a steek before the end of the year I’d better hurry.

But wait!! Did I say the Christmas knitting was done?? What about this:

No that isn’t a giant lumpy scarf (or a Snuffleupagus as HWJF said when he saw it. As in “Honey, you knit me a Snuffleupagus!”). That my friends is the beginning of a whole lot of socks. Remember how I was planning to make 25 socks for HWJF on the CSM before the big meltdown? And remember how I cleverly decided to finish toes and afterthought heels by hand.

Um… yeah. So not happening by Christmas. They might all get cranked, but they won’t all be finished. I guess it’s good that I botched the surprise anyway. All that finishing will make the car ride to Maine go by a little faster.

So my friends, as we will be off to Maine tomorrow night and I doubt that there will be much blogging time in the interim, I want to wish you all a Happy Hanuka, Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday or whatever else you may care to celebrate. Hold your loved ones close, pass along a smile and find happiness in something during this season. Take time to appreciate a ray of sunshine or a happy memory. These are the things that are really important.

See you sometime before 2009!!

I have another FO for you today, not entirely on purpose. Yes, it’s another Christmas gift, but this one was not intended to be of the stealth variety. This gift is for my now 89 year old Grandfather who isn’t exactly frequenting the blog. I may have talked about this here before, but we have a family joke that Grandpa’s shoulders go up in the fall and don’t come down until spring. Translation: he gets cold. So things warm and wooly are good. I decided that these would work out well for him since he would still be able to go outside and light his pipe (not that I approve of smoking but I’m not going to be the one to tell him to quit at his age!) and hopefully not set himself on fire!

Grandpa’s Christmas Gloves

Pattern: Urban Necessity Gloves by Colleen Michele Meagher
Yarn: Cascade 220, a little more than one skein
Needles: Size 6 Knitpicks harmony
Knit: 12/12-12/18/2008

This is an absolutely fantastic pattern. Clearly written, very simple and just the right bits of everything. Also, nicely customizable. I knit each finger to what I thought would be a good length for maximum warmth yet retaining flexibility. I decided to knit the mitten tops plain because we all know how our boys like things plain. I also probably did a bit of extra length on the cuffs with that maximum warmth idea in mind.

One little ingenious bit in this pattern is that you are instructed to cable the first and last stitch of each finger the first time around. This helps close up that inevitable little gap between each finger. Brilliant!! Reading that was definitely one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?!?” moments.

My only very tiny complaint with the pattern is that the decreases for the mitten cap are a bit wonky in my opinion. I think it’s easy enough to work out something better but it just kind of makes me wonder if I’m missing something. The rest of the pattern is so good!

I made the largest size and it took just over one skein of yarn. I think if I had shortened the fingers a small bit and perhaps not cut my tails so long I could have made it with one skein. Guess what? I get to find out! Because I was working on these when I was visiting my parents last weekend and HWJF AND my Dad requested their own pairs! Good thing I enjoyed knitting these! To keep it interesting I can see doing some sort of intarsia or fair isle motif on the mitten caps and/or the back of each hand. Then again, there’s that whole boys like things plain thing again… Unfortunately I won’t be seeing Grandpa before Christmas but these will be just as good in January I think!

Have a great weekend! And if you’re in the northeast enjoy the “weather”.

… but if you’d been knitting them fast and furiously at the end it would have been exciting to you!

Dad’s Christmas 2008 Socks

Pattern: My usual toe up (although I’ve taken a liking to Judy’s Magic Cast on lately)
Yarn: Oasis Yarns Aussi Sock
Needles: Size 1 Knit picks
Knit: 11/30-12/10/2008

Never thought in a million years that I would finish these on time or that they would actually FIT! But both happened. I kept looking at them thinking they would be too long and narrow, but they fit perfectly. Must learn to trust even my rudimentary math skills sometimes.

I’d also highly recommend this yarn. It’s the third time I’ve worked with it and it’s very nice. It’s a superwash merino nylon blend and they seem to have a lot of good “boy” colors every time I see them. Nice twist to the yarn too. Good stuff!

The other present I got for my Dad this year was this:

It’s a handbound notebook from Rhonda at My Handbound Books. A fellow librarian, Rhonda was very easy to work with and was able to customize this for me to be just what I was looking for. It had to be small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and rustic enough to suit my Dad and his yearly adventures. I also wanted high quality lined paper and she certainly didn’t let me down (we librarians are particular about our paper!).

I’m very much looking forward to getting one of my own after the new year!

I hope you’ll check out these etsy sellers I’ve linked to in these two posts. Even if it’s too late for your holiday shopping this year, these people have great customer service and great products and I would highly recommend them. I knew I couldn’t totally get away with doing the Handmade pledge this year, but I got pretty darn close. We also got Mom and Dad something similar to this GPS accessory which we love (no sucky thing marks on your windshield to let the bad dudes know they should break into your car for a good time!). All was much appreciated.

We were also very lucky on the receiving end. We got these two ornaments:

It is Stitches’ first Christmas after all! And we’ll be doing some shopping on our way to Maine with two of these:

And the kids got some goodies from their Grandparents too!

Definitely a Happy Christmas. The weird part is, I went into work on Monday and was obviously thinking Christmas should be over and was shocked that it wasn’t when I saw all the decorations in NYC. Silly brain, there’s one more Christmas to go!

Next time, a slightly more exciting new project.

Finally! I can show you knitting again! This stealth stuff has been for the birds, but my Mom does read the blog from time to time so I just didn’t want to ruin the surprise. We had our Christmas with my parents this weekend since we will be in Maine with HWJF’s family for the real thing this year. The only thing that sucked about doing it this weekend was that Saturday was also my Mom’s birthday! She kinda gets that whole born-in-December-screwed-on-the-presents thing because of that. But I tried to make it worth her while. So without further ado, Mom’s Christmas socks!

Flame Wave Socks

Pattern: Flame Wave Socks by Ann Budd from Interweave’s Best Socks book.
Yarn: Cascade Fixation
Needles: Size 4 and 5!
Knit: 11/17-11/30/2008

These were a pretty easy knit and thanks to the big needles, they went fairly quickly. I even followed the pattern as written and knit them top down. You are shocked, I’m sure. There was definitely a moment that I thought that was going to be a mistake since I didn’t have much left for that kitchener toe, but I made it by the skin of my teeth. There was significantly more yarn in the other ball. Annoying!

This definitely isn’t my favorite yarn to knit with, but with Mom’s allergy to wool it’s one of the better solutions out there. And since it can be knit on such big needles (from a sock perspective anyway) that doesn’t hurt either!

I also knit Mom a birthday present. I really cannot believe I managed to get this one done in time. It was a feverish race to the finish. Since I wanted both Mom and Dad to have at least one hand knit to open each, and since the straight needles were *killing* me, I decided to concentrate on Dad’s Christmas gift instead for a while and figured Mom’s Scarf was a lost cause. As it was, that barely made it to done on time with his socks. More on his gift next time, but here’s what I’ve been working on for Mom’s birthday:

Morning Surf Scarf

Pattern: Morning Surf Scarf from Spin-Off Magazine
Yarn: Oasis Yarn Seduction Silk
Needles: Size 6 straights!
Knit: 10/20-12/11/2008

It’s another Morning Surf scarf, this time in the 100% silk yarn that I bought at Rhinebeck. I would have liked to have spun something for this, but I knew I wasn’t going to have the time, so this had to do. It’s lovely yarn and the pattern works out wonderfully with it. I was dubious about my choice of color combo at first, but after showing it to another group of knitters I was more confident.

And by the way, this pattern, even the second time around? Still Not Boring! I don’t think I would have gotten this done if I couldn’t have said that. Scarf knitting is not my forte.

After blocking, the yarn had even more drape than when I was knitting with it and the sheen didn’t go away. The silk smell definitely came out when it was wet (it *is* worm poo after all!), but went away when it was dry.

The best part of knitting this? When Mom opened it she immediately said with a smile on her face, “It’s my hint!!” which if you look back on the comments on this post you will see. I would have had to been deaf, blind and stupid not to get that one! There’s nothing better than a happy hand knit recipient though.

I also made a couple of purchases for Mom for birthday gifts. Unfortunately, one hasn’t arrived yet, but the other two did and we both couldn’t have been happier. First, this gorgeous necklace came from Creations by Uli:

She does all sorts of jewelry made from chain mail. When I saw this one, I had a very hard time not just ordering it for myself! But I knew Mom would like it too (the love of blue is hereditary!) so I gave it to her. Uli does wonderful work and couldn’t have been more accommodating with my order. Thanks Uli!

I also ordered this from Danielle’s Originals:

It’s a key chain with Sandy painted on it! It’s the likeness to the picture amazing?!? This was a rush order and Danielle also couldn’t have been more easy to work with and more accommodating. She’s definitely got a great talent too.

Next time, Dad’s presents!