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?

Recent Aquistions

As of late I have finally begun to cash in my birthday gift cards to various craft stores. For those interested, my birthday was back in June. I know it has taken awhile to get around to using them but I'm one of those types who puts their gift cards in random places and then happens upon them months later. It's like second birthday! Anyways, I had gift cards to Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and Jo-Ann's (I call this the craft store trifecta). I used my Jo-Ann's card awhile back to purchase The Big Book of Quick Knitted Afghans, some US size 17 circulars (for said afghan projects), and some paint that I needed for a sign I was making.

The book with my first project from it on the needles.

The pattern I was making.

I have actually finished the afghan I started from this book.

Did not intentionally drape this exactly like the picture from the book. Ok, maybe I did a little.

So, that was one gift card well spent. The Hobby Lobby one was next. I snagged some yarn for the Square, Not a Circle blanket and the newest issue of the Debbie Bliss knitting magazine.

Yarn for the blanket.

British knitting magazine.

I still have not decided how to spend the Michael's gift card yet. I was really hoping that one of the stores would carry a pair of US 10.5 circulars with a 60" cable but apparently Addi is the only company that makes circulars that long. I will probably be needing more yarn to complete my mitered squares blanket but I may use some white I have in my stash instead of the purple and "berry" colors I have. In addition to using the gift cards I also treated myself to some goodies a few weeks ago when I visited the Whole Nine Yarns in Woodstock. I got a skein of Ella Rae and a skein of Nature Spun. I was thinking a hat would be made out of these fun, bright colors.

The Ella Rae was a natural choice. See where it's from?

I'm a Romanian at heart!

Authentic

I have the good fortune of calling a very talented and lovely woman both my friend and mentor. From time to time Deanna will invite me to do cool things with her which is really a super nice gesture since she has lots of much cooler friends and a husband and three children she could easily pick over me. Thursday night I got to spend some great time with her at the Fabulous Fox Theater in Atlanta watching Wicked.

As a former music education major it shames me a little to admit that I have never seen this musical and as an avid reader is shames me further to admit I haven't read the book either. After having seen the musical I really want to read the book. And the songs were fantastic; the girl playing Elphaba had an amazing set of pipes!

But hanging with Deanna is more than just getting to see a critically acclaimed musical. There's usually some good food and always some good conversation and last night I even got a surprise.

About a month ago Deanna was off in Germany doing a series of really big speaking engagements. Deanna and her husband were missionaries in Germany and know people in pretty much every European country (as far as I am convinced) so Deanna knows her way around the continent. For part of her trip she was visiting friends in Norway and look what she brought me:

Real live Norwegian knitting patterns!

Oh, but the goodies don't stop there.

You know, just an authentic Austrian knitting book.

A wonderful Austrian knitting book picked up in, you guessed it, Austria. So very, very cool. This book is a classic.

 

 

CABLES!!!

And it's all about cables. Cable charts, pictures of cables, cables on sweaters, cables on socks.

A sweater pattern full of cables. Can't read a word of it but just look at the craftsmanship!

Deanna had no prior knowledge but I harbor a deep love of cabled things. I might even consider tackling one of the majorly complex looking cabled knee sock patterns (with detailed instructions on how to shape the calf) in this book because....

She also bought me sock yarn. From Austria. With which to make socks like Austrians do. I'm one lucky gal and Deanna's one heck of a friend.

Christmas Recap

I hope everyone out there in bloggy world had a very merry Christmas! Let's do the time warp again and go back to last week.

Wednesday: I started by washing and sewing the buttons on the BSJ for my cousin Britt.
Then I finished up my mom's gift (the fabled Last Knitted Gift of '09...which you will see more of in a moment). And finished all the wrapping.
Penelope helped by keeping Brandi's pizza pan warm.
Then checked to make sure the gift boxes were the proper size.
By then she was pretty tired so she took a little break on the snuggie.
But woke up and moved to the floor to guard her toys (including a new catnip toy she got for Christmas from me).

Thursday: The fam and I traveled to south GA to my aunt and uncle's house where we had a big Christmas dinner and gift exchange with my extended family.

My cousins Jake and Harrison got their sweaters. Jake asked me back in the summer to make him a sweater. I was a little afraid that he wouldn't remember asking me but those worries were unfounded.
As soon as he opened it, he looked at me and said, "You made this for me, didn't you?!?" He was really excited. Later that evening he even put it on and wore it around. My mom has some great pictures of him in front of the Christmas tree. He was even jumping and running around in it and it was holding up well (Am I the only person who's paranoid that the first time someone wears something I've made it will totally and spontaneously fall apart?).

Harrison got his sweater as well but he was little distracted by the Mickey Mouse play tent and G.I. Joe figures he'd gotten.
Friday: Christmas Day was spent with my parents at their house. My aunt Becky was there as well to open gifts from Santa. And an unoriginal hat from me :)
I won't post the pictures of my mom since she'd probably not like that but here's some pictures of the scarf I made her (The Last Knitted Gift of '09).
I had some fun bundling up in it.
It's the Irish Hiking Scarf made from Eco + in a bright fuchsia color. It turned out super lush and warm. I didn't have time to block it but I did wash it at my parent's house and laid it out to dry.
This picture doesn't have the correct color but it shows the stitch pattern really well.

Saturday: My brother and future SIL came over to my parent's house to open their Christmas presents (they were with my future SIL's family for Christmas Eve and Christmas). My brother had to try on my Rockin' Bones hoodie that came in the mail (a gift from Santa).
What sucks is that he looks better in it than I do. I told him he could pull off the punk/emo look. That night we went out to eat for my cousin Brianna's birthday.

Sunday: This morning I woke up and knit for about an hour on a slipper for charity. After church I drove to Thomson, GA for a Christmas themed wedding shower for my brother and Brandi (my future SIL). Between driving there and back I've been in the car for over 5 hours. Now it's time to relax and watch some t.v. and finish knitting my slipper. And also try and fight this head cold I've come down with. Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll sleep in as late as the cat will let me and then dye some yarn. I'm already thinking of my New Year's goals so I think it might be time to revisit last year's goals and see how I did.

BSJ

I have one incredibly cute FO to show you...
The Baby Surprise Jacket is finished! It's so cute! I still need to sew up the shoulder seams and weave in ends and find buttons but for all intents and purposes it is done. The last little bit where you are knitting 200 stitches or so isn't the funnest thing I've ever done but as soon as it came off the needles I was squealing over the cuteness and wanted to cast on another right away. Not tonight though. Tonight I'm baking some cookies for a holiday party tomorrow and washing pants for work. I'm exhausted so as soon as this second batch comes out of the oven I'm off to bed.

Thanks to everyone who left comments on the book and the scarf. I'm glad that others have enjoyed reading the book and I appreciate all the kind compliments on the gift. It is nice to knit for those who really enjoy it!

Well Received

Saturday night I had a church Christmas party to attend and got to give my first gift of the holiday season.

Remember this July when I went to Peru? And then I came back with this yarn:
My friend Jonathan actually found the stall where this yarn was. As soon as he found it I knew I had to make him something, if nothing else than to thank him for finding me the yarn. I started making something for him back in October when I was in a knitting rut and needed a mindless project. Ever since we've gotten back from Peru, Jonathan has been dropping not so subtle hints that he wanted me to make him something. And then asking me when he was getting his sweater, mittens, hat, scarf, etc. And I just played dumb. Saturday though, he finally got what he was asking for...
He knew what was coming...
He said he could smell the alpaca...
And he loved it! Jonathan is the type of guy who can appreciate a well made scarf. He said it was soft and warm and then spent 20 minutes making everyone pet it and pointing out the finer details of the construction. I'd say that he gets to stay on the knitted gifts recipient list :)

The last of the Christmas gifts are coming along. There is one gift that I can't show on the blog but the baby surprise jacket is kicking it.
I'm about 15 rows from being finished which is spurring me on through the rows and rows and rows of garter stitch. Now, as for the gift buying part of the holidays...that's another story...

Good Intentions Should Count for More

I had every intention of posting yesterday but Blogger was down so I was forced to wait until now. This is ok however, since I discovered something about my gauntlet.




This is the picture from yesterday of my Elvish Gauntlet:

Notice anything maybe a little odd? The little peaked part that should lie nicely at the fingertips is lying nicely at my wrist. Now I would swear on a stack of Bibles that I followed the pattern correctly. But it came out upside down. Then I started thinking, Mitts are like socks. Socks are worked from the top down. In this case the "top" is actually my fingertips. I've been trying these on backwards. If that is indeed the case the opening for the thumb should have come after the lace pattern not before it (as I had done).

Luckily this was an easy fix. I just put the gauntlet on the other hand. Problem solved.

And it doesn't make the lace look "wrong" or "weird" in any way (at least not that I can tell).

But then I got to thinking, what if I had read the pattern wrong? I thought when you read lace patterns in the round that you read them from top to bottom and right to left, every line, like so:
But then I worried that you read them the "normal" way, like below:
Needless to say, I'm going to knit the other gauntlet starting with the ribbing first and then the lace, working the lace just as I did for the first one. If it's wrong, well, I had the intention of it being correct, and I think that should count for something.

Tonight I'm going to work some on a new project (yes, I have second gauntlet syndrome).

This is half the needed stitches for a Honeymoon Cami. I'm not going on a honeymoon (or getting married for that matter) any time soon but I like the pattern. I just hope the yarn knits up tight enough. Don't need to be scandalous with this!

And I want to leave you with my new most precious gift.

This was knit for me by one of the little girls in my knitting class at school. She finished this in one day. I saw her knitting it one morning and commented that she must have multiple projects going at the same time. She very slyly commented that she had just started this one and that she did indeed have other things she was working on. And then the next day she gave me this as a farewell gift (it was our last day of class). Needless to say, I almost cried. I guess being a knitter I can appreciate the work that goes into receiving a hand knit item. Even if it is just a small little purse. So very sweet. I could not have asked for a better going away gift.

The rest of tonight I will be watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and knitting my tank top. I think I have seen this movie about 15 times (I saw it 4 times in the theater alone) and can quote it pretty much line for line (even the extended edition) but I absolutely love it.