Prepping

Holiday preparations are well under way! Today is the start of Christmas week festivities with our annual "Christmas Eve" celebration. We moved it this year from Christmas Eve to the weekend before Christmas to accommodate more people. Personally I'm a little relieved. I've been working like crazy this week to get some internship hours in before I leave for the holidays. That means that nothing besides Christmas shopping has been accomplished. Case in point: I still need to finish packing for my trip to Romania which happens in 4 days.

The only thing that's been packed are supplies for the kids. Too bad I also need clothes to wear. However, having the Christmas Eve celebration today means more time before Christmas to get packing and wrapping done.

In my defense I have finished some laundry and made brownies for this afternoon. I still have some work stuff to finish before I can actually leave the country but I've been working on it slowly and steadily...for the most part.

Through this doorway lies the workspace of doom. Enter if you dare...

Last night I did a little paperwork and then started one of the few Christmas presents I decided to make this year. I almost didn't make any gifts at all but then my grandmother requested some dishcloths and I thought that might be kind of nice. And then I thought my other grandmother might like some slippers so I'll be making those later this weekend.

Still life: Cat with Dishcloth in Early Morning Sun

The big question is: can I finish this dishcloth before 12:30 p.m. when we leave for the party? Does it matter that it is now 11:15 and I'm not dressed or have any gifts wrapped? What if I throw in the fact that I need to fold laundry? How about adding in the fact that I'm blogging instead of knitting?

Secrets Revealed

My secret project has been given away to its intended recipients so I can reveal what I've been working on for the last few weeks.

Ta da! Dishcloths! Wedding themed dishcloths by Kris Knits none the less.

Hearts and cake

Dove and man and wife

Church and champagne glass (color is most accurate in this picture)

Rings and bells

They were a huge hit at the shower on Saturday and a ton of fun to knit. I could pop one out in about 2 hours so they were also quick, a real plus. I would definitely recommend these to anyone and I'm pretty sure I'll try some of Kris's other patterns in the future.

Dishcloths aren't the only thing I've been working on though.

My week 3 portion of the Road Scarf KAL for EEROP is almost complete.

I just need to knit the 4 rows of garter stitch that separate this section from the next. I'm really enjoying knitting on this scarf! It's so easy and yet, I don't get bored with one pattern. It's got me thinking about ideas for other scarves...

Also started teaching a new sock class last week which means I started my "demonstration" pair of socks.

It's just a child's size so it's moving along quickly which is good because I'm not terribly fond of this color (though it looks a lot better in the picture than in real life). I dyed this ages ago with gel food coloring in black and red. Gel food coloring is not the best thing to use to dye yarn as I found out. The colors came out really washed out looking. I might over dye with blue or something. Still not sure.

Nothing on the needles for myself at the moment. Or for friends and family. I wanted to start the Skew socks for myself but the pattern suggests using circulars and I don't have any in the correct size. Thought about just trying it with DPNs but I'm not sure. Suggestions as to what I should do are welcome.

I still have some requests from friends and family for knits and there is a shop sample to be made. But right now I just want to take some of this pink and purple and sparkly yarn and knit something. Probably another scarf.

I want to give all my loyal readers a heads up about some changes coming up. At the beginning of May there are going to be some changes made to the blog and to the store. For your patience with these changes I'm going to have some giveaways and prizes. There will be more updates coming soon (hopefully a whole blog post devoted to the subject) and you can follow me on Twitter to be on the cutting edge of changes.

Christmas Break Day 1

Today was the first official day that I did not have to go to work. I slept in and made a nice-ish lunch. I've got plans for tonight to go ice skating with some friends in Atlanta. A good start to the holidays I would say.

Last night we did our immediate family gift exchange (Mom, Dad, brother, and Brandi) so I can show you the gift that I made for my Mom.
She got this lovely set of dishcloths. My grandmother will get a matching set on Wednesday at our extended family gift exchange but since she and my grandfather aren't exactly internet savvy I think it's ok that I showed you these.

My gifts included a Vera Bradley bag and clutch from my brother and Brandi, socks, underwear, and shoes from my parents, and a gift card to Joann's from my parents. Last week I got 50% off coupons for Joann's so today I ordered a Needlemaster set of interchangeable needles, a row counter (since my other has been lost to the abyss), and some stitch holders. A great start to the gift giving/getting.

On a different note, a few weeks ago I was online looking at the information for Cascade Magnum (remember I received some in a swap?) when I saw that it was sold at a store listed here in Duluth. Well, I did some investigating and never could find said store. I did manage to find a website though. So, I sent an email to the owner. She got back to me and told me that, unfortunately, things with their builder had not gone as planned so the physical store was not in existence yet. She did offer to help me track down any yarn I needed and told me she had a large selection of yarns stored at her house. Well, I thanked her and told her I would let her know if I needed anything and that I would meet her at Stitches South (where she would have a booth). This morning I woke up to a delightful email from Kay (the store owner) telling me all about several meeting groups and inviting me to come to the Atlanta Knitting Guild with her as a guest! How nice is that? I mean, she could have just put me on the back burner until I meet her in April but she went out of her way to invite me into her community and make me feel welcome. Despite the fact that unknown social interactions (even of the knitting kind) give me a panic attack I want to go and brave the unknown. I want to meet these people who have been lurking just down the road and I never even knew it. The first meetings aren't until January so I maybe I'll be able to find some Valium before then...

In addition to all these fantastical happenings my favorite charity, Warm Woolies, just announced in their newsletter a new contest for 2009! It's called "10 for 10 by 2010" and knitters are asked to knit socks and sweaters for children ages 10-16. My personal goal is to knit at least on sweater in a size 10, 12, 14, and 16. I would love to knit two in each size, one for a girl and one for a boy, but I know sweaters can take a fair amount of time. Plus I have a sweater I want to make for myself! And a hat. Have you ever heard of a knitter without a decent hand knit hat of her own? Sad.

Well, I'm off to enjoy the rest of the afternoon before I venture out into the cold for some ice skating!

Happy Mother's Day!

Now that Mother's Day is over and my mom received her gifts I can show you what I've been working on for the past few days: a set of three cotton dishcloths.

Round dishcloth
Simple square dishcloth
Wheatfields dishcloth
Close up of the Wheatfields
Wrapped for mom
I used Rowan All Seasons Cotton and a US size 6 needle for all three. They took 4 days to finish. I'm quite proud of my quick work. I can't remember all the details of the patterns but they all came from the same collection and they are on my Ravelry page (Ravelry link).

I spent today cleaning house and napping. Early this evening I cast on for some lacy gauntlets. I'm still working on the mitered squares but I need something to break up the monotony a bit. I plan on knitting the mitered squares when I'm at work or out and about and knitting the gauntlets when I'm at home. I'll have more pictures soon but I'm a little tired tonight so they will have to wait.

Also, in other news, I have a new job! Yes, I'm still going to be teaching 1st grade and, yes, I still teach private music lessons (wait, I didn't tell you about that one? oops...), I'm just adding another hat I will wear. I'm going to be helping a friend of mine with his on-line store called Eat. Sleep. Tweet. If you are a fan of Twitter you should check it out. If you're not you should check it out anyways, it's pretty cool. I'm going to be in charge of shipping and distribution. Basically whenever you order something from the site I'll be filling your order and sending it to you. I'm looking forward to this new endeavor. It will earn me a little extra spending money...which we all know equals more yarn :)