Christmas Knitting!

This is our gingerbread house. Lovely little abode, eh? Notice the little people on the front?



Jay, Andrew, Daisy (their new puppy) and Simon. It's really cool to see my own son playing with the younger kids and being sweet and wonderful about it. Warms the heart.



My dad and mom with their new scarves. You can see that Dad is wearing the hat I made him for his birthday, too - they are of the same yarn. Yes, they love their gifts! The moebious scarf is so long, Dad was getting creative in putting it on - looping it all around his body. I have decided not to share those pictures. :-\


A closeup of Mom's scarf. The yarn is exquisite, and Jan at the Merc found me the absolute perfect garment for it. It turned out perfect (well, except for a few well-placed mistakes so that we all remember that I am not perfect like God . . . or something).

Christmas, part 1

A few pictures from the present orgy of the morning with my in-laws. No pictures of them, or of me, as we were still in jammies and . . . well . . . to put it kindly, my FIL's hair was stupendous. ;-)


Mike was often honored to play matress for Sunshine, a very old kitty. She's frail now, and doesn't move well, but she does love body heat, and Mike is gifted that way.



These are the socks (and the feet) of FIL and MIL. They fit perfectly - yay - and they both seem to like them! I just hope they actually wear them and don't "save them for good".

My parents are joining us this afternoon, so I should have a few more pics later today or tomorrow.

Gratitude!

I don't have any pictures to update you with yet, but I just had to come back and tell you how lovely my staff at work have been! They've all been talking about how great it was, all the work I put into their gifts and how each thing I made was just perfect for the recipient - each one unique and all that. Yay! I should have known they'd come through and be wonderful - that's why I made them all nice things, afterall! Now I just need to get them to all wear their new gifts so I can take pictures!

On the needles now: another hat for another friend, that summer tank top I started for myself ages ago, the second of my final pair of sock war socks (yes, I still have to finish that darn thing and no, I never did receive a pair of socks from the stoopid war).

Soon to be on the needles: hubby's sweater (gasp! a full-size sweater!), a baby gift for a friend

Gift Giving

I finished all of the presents I made for my staff: 2 scarves, 3 tiny sock ornaments, 12 hats. I went in to work today (I've been off all week) for the party (just a potluck in the break room) and delivered them. A few people were very touched by the time it took, etc. A couple just sort of brushed it off (it seemed) and the rest hadn't opened them by the time I left. Makes me wonder: what do they think, really? Are they expecting presents from me, the "boss" of the branch? I never expect gifts from my own supervisor. Sometimes all of the administrators will go together and make a donation in our honor to the Literacy Council or something, which is very nice. I've not received a gift from my staff for a few years now. Maybe I should just stick to family and just give out cards at work. I was just feeling - I don't know - generous. I wanted to do something nice for each of them. There is a little, tiny bit of me that feels like they don't appreciate me . . .but I am trying to drown that out with feelings of being giving and happy and generous and how nice that feeling can be.

Ah well - I didn't get any pics, since the big pile on the bed pic. Maybe some other day I'll ask them all to wear their stuff and take a group pic. Maybe not.

First, I must brag about my beautiful TG pie. Dod you see the little leaves and flowers I put around the edge of the crust?



Here is the pile of hats for my staff. I'm up to 9 and #10 is on the needles. I have a few washclothes, too, but I'm afraid I might not have enough "boy" things, so I'm going to work on that now. #10 is a boy hat, I think, and really, now that I'm looking, it's pretty evenly divided. One person on my staff just asked me yesterday if I could make her one of the little mini socks . . . so after this hat I think I'll make some of those as ornaments and offer those to ppl who wouldn't like a hat. What do you all think?

I'm starting to knit according to deadlines. #1 Finish staff stuff first. #2 Finish Christmas stuff for my family, who'll be opening gifts on Dec. 24-25. #3 Finish gifts for my in-laws who we'll visit on New Year's weekend. #4 Finish gifts for other friends who'll have to wait til January. I must resist knitting for myself! OMG - I almost forgot my dad's birthday next weekend. New hat!!!!!! (Mom, keep the secret, please!)

Sock Wars

I have lost the war in the sudden death round. YM put her addy up on our spreadsheet and whomever got a letter to her first would win. Someone sent her flowers - genius! Here is a pic of the flowers of my doom.

I also just received the SIPs from my last victim. I'll finish off the second sock for my current vic and be done. Done, I tell you!

WIP UPDATE! (finally)

Mom- Don't tell Dad, but this is his enormous moebius scarf. It is a big huge loop that goes down to my feet. LOL Sorry for the blurry - operator malfunction on the camera.











This next one is one of the many hats I'm making. My goal is to have something handknit for everyone on my staff (that's 16 items for those of you keeping track) by Christmas. We'll see! Let's count this as one. I think I'll do a mix of hats and washclothes and felted bowls. :-)








This is number two of the great staff knitting extravaganza! It's great bulky yarn. I couldn't get a good picture (obviously), but it has shiny bits, too. I couldn't resist the tassle.












And this is hat #3 - I used some of the Noro Silk Garden for the brim, and lovely heather purple wool for the rest. I likes it.










And this, obviously, is a cat, not a hat. :-) Hello Rosie!

NYC part deux

I wanted to be sure to show the view from one of the coffee shops I found. Was delightful, and just warm enough to eat outside.

I also found the Jefferson Market Library, and it was delightful. It's an historic landmark building, once used at the courthouse. Lots of great stained glass and that cool turret! The Children's Librarian even printed out the history of the building for me.

Here you see the pink pig potholder I made for my uncle.

A pic of my uncle. I was struck with howmuch he looks like my grandmother as I remember her. I didn't tell him that, though, as he is very sensitive about his age.
And then, finally, another WIP - the hat I made while there. 2 strands of Noro Silk Garden together. It's a really beautiful hat, full of rich colors!

I love NY, pt 1

These are not in order, but just some random memories. First, me and my sock in Bryant Park, just behind the Main NYPL at 42nd st. It was a very windy, day, but in the sun it was delightful. I loved the smell of the crepe stand that was nearby, too . . . until some smokers came into the vicinity. Sigh.


This is the knitting store that I think was the inspiration for one of the shops in _Chicks with Sticks_. It was a fun store, if much higher-priced than my own LYS, and it was right above the Jamba Juice shop (yum!).

The white building in the middle there is my Uncle's apartment building. He is on the second floor. You can see the hardware store to the left of the frame, and the greenish awnings on the right are a massage place (I didn't indulge because I can get them at half the price here) and a design place of some kind. Across the street is the home/studio of Donna Karan, and my uncle told me lots of dish-y stories about living across from that, including how she introduced her Fall line there this year and he could see into the dressing rooms from his windows.
I spent Saturday afternoon with my friend, BigGoose. We met in front of the library, rode the subway to Central Park, walked there, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art(the Vollard Exhibit was amazing, as was the rest!), and then had dinner at a Kosher place around the corner before catching buses in opposite directions. I liked the Alice sculpture in CP, too - and it was a lovely day for walking . .. but after all that walking on marble and pavement, I was pooped! I'll post another installment, including a pic of Uncle Dick, soon.

Meeting Carol Spinney!

I wrote about meeting Carol Spinney on my other blog but I finally got the pictures from when we met. This is the two of us singing "I Love Trash". What a thrill! You can see I'm holding my flannel board, and carring a bag of books over my shoulder because I've just finished doing some storytelling for COSI, which is where we were standing.

WIP News

I have cast on another pair of socks using the Sock War's pattern "International Sock of Doom". I like it a lot, and if I need to send another pair on to another victim, this will keep my skills up. [wink]









Here you can see the progress on the shell I'm making for myself. It has taken a back seat to other projects lately, but I sorta want to finish it before my trip to NYC in late October. I'm starting to think that is too lofty a goal.









I found this really cute baby bootie pattern that I've wanted to try, and I finally did. The pen is in the picture so you can see the size better. Took me about 3 hours to make the pair (I made one bootie each of two consecutive nights). I used 3 strands of some sock-weight cotton KB gave me. I like them, but I don't really like the pattern much, I mean they look nice but I didn't enjoy doing the pattern. I'll try a different pattern next time.




And then I bought some great new yarn for my dad's Christmas present. I cast on for a long moebius scarf. Don't let out my secrets, Mom!
And finally, my two lovely cats. Rosie, on the left, and Samwise. a.k.a. Spazmo and Luxury Cat. They rarely share a chair like this anymore so I had to capture it in pixels.

SOCK WARS!

I have finished my first pair of socks for Sock Wars! I'll be sending them to my victim tomorrow! I used an absolutely luscious yarn - something Debbie Bliss - wool, cotton and viscose blend. I am going to have to make another pair or more of these - they're delicious!

Oh My!

A friend of mine emailed this to me:
Yarn thief gets year in jail

By BY CHARLES YOO
Published on: 09/25/06
A woman prosecutors called a serial yarn thief will spend a year in jail after pleading guilty to shoplifting Monday in DeKalb County.

Audrey Yandel, a 70-year-old Atlanta grandmother and a retired nurse, has been convicted 12 times in the past two decades, mostly for stealing yarn, according to DeKalb Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney John Melvin.


In the DeKalb cases, Yandel was caught stealing yarn at a Decatur shop in January 2005 and knitting needles at a Dunwoody business in May 2006.

Her attorney, Charles Pekor, said she's been suffering from "compulsive behavior disorder" and has been seeking psychiatric help.

After serving a year in jail, Yandel will be placed on probation for six years. She's now forbidden from entering any specialty store that sells yarn.


*************
Yikes!

SOCK WARS!

Yarn Monkey has finally started the first ever (that we know of) International SOCK WARS! I have the first sock about 2/3 done. My victim lives in Northern Ireland - isn't that cool? Her name is Catherine, too!

More later - must go knit!

Chains and Kippahs

Did I mention I finally found the lost sock again? Well, I'm ready to finish off the toe, but I've been avoiding it because then I'll have to cast on the other sock and I can't find the paper where I wrote down how many stithces it is. LOL This one looks good, though, and finally long enough to go on a foot bigger than my own! Yay Christmas!







I've also been working on Marley's Ghost Chain in a Fibonacci Sequence. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Now I need to decide - to felt or not to felt!


I have a few friends who are Jewish, and I've been thinking for some time now that I'd make some Kippahs (Yarmulkes) to give away. Obviously not for Christmas presents, but you know what I mean. Anyway - I accidentally made one when I was trying (still futilely, obviously) to make the perfect hat for my friend Gary. I don't think it makes that great of a Kippah, though, and my friend KnittingBrow was over the other night and suggested I pick up stitches and knit sides to it, making it a cool pillbox. I think I'll do that.

I can do that partly because I did manage to find a Kippah pattern. I've made one, but I think it's too small for adults, so I'm back to the needles in a few days to cast on a larger one. Sigh. This one is really love - Stork yarn that is so soft you can barely stand it.

Speaking of unbearably soft - I got the most beautiful yarn what in PA. This is Lana Grossa Cool Wool and it's absolutely delightful. 100 % wool, but it has some stretch AND it guages out very oddly. KB and I were each knitting swatches Wed. night and we came up with MORE stitches on larger needles than on smaller. Oddlings. At any rate I've now finally taken the plunge to knit myself the shell I've wanted forever. I love this yarn, and even though it took me all evening to knit only one inch, I think it'll be great! yay!

I'm also planning to start on the Moebius cowl - a true moebius from Cat Bordhis magical books. I got some other really vibrant blue yarn that is soft as anything, but I need a longer circular needle to do the moebius. LYS, here I come!

Vacation Report #5 (final)

Two last pics from Gettysburg. First, the enormous diorama. Something like 20,000 individually painted soldiers, etc. Very cool. It is at a campground. This sign was at the campground,too. I just thought it was funny, warning people that they "assume the risk of equine activities". Signs like this are a direct result of having too many lawyers in our society. Someone ought to find those people decent jobs.

These are two pictures from Hershey, where we went with my friend, Ann. We don't do amusement parks (they have a huge one there) but this is the factory tour, and Simon posing by the giant Twizzlers in the garden. I don't want to post the pic of me and Ann until I get her permission. :-) We had a great time! I've been back at work 2 whole days, can I go back to vacation mode now?

Vacation Report #4

It is amazing to me to look out on all of the natural beauty of the battlefields of a place like Gettysburg and know (feel it in my bones, really) how many young men died there 150 years ago. It's creepy and horrible and awesome, really, in a vicious way. One the one hand you have these beautiful rolling hills, the trees, the monuments (many of which are really very great art), and on the other hand you have the war, the three days when thousands of young men went at one another with guns and bayonets to fight and die for their beliefs.

And there is another thing - it's good that we abolished slavery - it was a righteous cause. It was good, even, to fight to preserve the union, I guess. But is it really right to fight to the death like that? Is it entirely necessary? What about those young men of the 20th Maine who were told to hold the end of the line "at all hazards"? What about their mothers and sweethearts, sitting at home knowing that their boys were being sacrificed like they were merely instruments? What justification can we give to those grieving families?

Thousands of men died. So many men died they had to bury them in mass graves. The Southern casualties laid where they fell until the 1870s, nearly 10 years later, when the South came and claimed their remains. It was awful.

And now, every year, hundreds of thousands of people visit these fields of death. Are we glorifying the destruction or honoring the brave men or celebrating the abolition of slavery? I assume that many of us have a mixture of all of this in our hearts and minds as we go through . . . at least I hope I'm not the only one who thinks of these things.


Anyway, I lighten things up for myself by knitting, and by posing with the statues. This is the only one that really made it to the camera, though, because Simon was embarrassed by me. LOL

My next post will probably be my final vacation report. Just a few more pics to share with y'all. Vacationing with a photographer (hubby) yields a lot of publishable pics.

Vacation Report #3

These are more pictures from the islands. Simon has become uncomfortable with having pictures taken of himself so we kind of have to coerce him every time we want one. He has a tendancy to look surly, so Mike has begun tickling him, etc. This first one is the two of them in front of a shipwreck on Assateague.


Simon does, however, enjoy handling the camera himself sometimes, thus the pic of Mike and I. Mike and Si took what they now both call "the death walk" by hiking along one of the nature trails on Assateague. It was, apparently, overrun with mosquitoes and didn't yield (strangely) any good birds. I had opted to sit and knit during that walk, thereby missing the bites. Yay me! Yay knitting!

Bombay Hook Delaware is really lovely. We got there on Monday around noon, and there were thousands of birds. Mike tells me that when it is migration time there are hundreds of thousands, and many more species than we saw, but I was quite happy with our afternoon there. I really enjoyed all of the herons and their ilk.


And finally, on Tuesday morning we arrived at Gettysburg, bright and early (just as the visitor's center was opening, really). This is what Si has been waiting for all Summer. He was so excited he was nearly uncontainable. We had even had to ask him to please stop talking about the Civil War while we were enjoying the nature on the coast because he'd become so obsessed with it all he was hardly even noticing the beach and birds. We did the Visitor's Center first, and then started the cool in-your-car audio tour we'd purchased at Antietam. More on this later!