Christmas '07

Christmas has come and gone. Oh hey look! It's 2008 already! Yeah, probably time to post a Christmas knitting update, eh?

Firstly, remember that big green thing? Yeah, no way that was happening. So I focused myself on two pairs of socks. That's all. I know, I know, kind of a lame year for Christmas knitting. Deal with it. The socks were both made from Knitpicks Bare, Kool-Aid dyed. The first you saw in the previous post. The second was dyed with lots of grape and berry blue. The pink ones went to sister Jill, and the blue/purple to sister Lori. Both were knit using Knitty's universal toe-up formula. They were my first toe-up socks. And let me tell you, I'm in love with toe-up now.




Interestingly, I'd spent weeks hemming and hawing over trying to find a suitable non-wool sock yarn for Lori who is allergic to wool. I even knit a whole sock in Cascade fixation effect (which I do not recommend) and ended up frustrated with the finished product. When Lori got here, I shoved some Knitpicks Bare in her face and said "does it bother you?" Aaaand...it didn't. I could have been knitting her socks with that the whole time. hrmph.



Anyway... They came out great, even though Lori only had a sock and a half on Christmas morning.





In other news. I finally have pictures of my mom with Bristow on! It looks aweosme, long sleeves and all. Mom switched the buttons to some bigger buttons which stay better, and they look really good.




And prehaps most excitingly I'm on Ravelry now!! Yay! The waiting time nearly killed me I was so excited to get on it. I can't stop just playing with things. It's so awesome. :)

I can't figure out how to get the button in my sidebar though. *idiot*

Let the Christmas knitting begin!

And now comes the time of year when I can't really talk about anything I'm knitting....because it could be for you ;)

But now that Solar Decathlon is over and done with, I can start to get back on track with my knitting. After this past weekend's hockey games (we won both...by a lot) in which I earned my battle scars including this:

and possibly a minor concussion (too stubborn to go to the doctor), I've got my Christmas knitting underway! I've started on it a little (a lot) later than I would have liked, but at least it got started at all.

I have just a tiny bit of this:


With a whole lot more where that came from:


And I'm eying these babies from my stash as some possible candidates for some smaller presents.

This is entirely overambitious and I would probably never be able to finish these projects by Christmas if I had the power to bend time. However, I am pressing on. This could get messy.

branching out = done

Here's Branching out blocked out:

Here's it in the box!

Yaay! I got something else done! On time even! It blocked really well :) This was my first chance to use my new blocking wires, and I love them.

Now if I can just get Bristow done. I blocked the back and front pieces tonight, but have yet to make the sleeves. So at least I can sew those bits together. Mom could end up unwrapping a sleeveless sweater on Christmas.

And finally: Go chek out today's Google logo! There are two kangaroos knitting! I have no idea why this is the logo, but it makes me very happy!

Progress

I finished Jill's Branching Out tonight. Yay! It's such a fast and easy lace pattern, good for a present. Hope she likes it! I'm going to block it out when I get up tomorrow.

Also, satchel is all done. (Here with Pippin, the family corgi)

But I think I'm giving up on MancalaMia...I'll finish it after Christmas for Lori's birthday in January. It's just too much, I need time to work on Mom's sweater. But now I have to think of something else to get for her....


Also today, Mom and I made pugoch! The BEST cookies to ever exist...eveeer. They're a Christmas tradition in the Newman household :) Pastry cookies with jelly in the center, soooooo delicious and buttery.

Looking past Christmas knitting, I mentioned earlier that I was hoping to start a shawl on my trip to the Bahamas after Christmas...well I got the yarn today! I was very excited, I ordered the yarn (The Alpaca Yarn Company's Suri Elegance) on Friday night and I wasn't sure it would get here before I leave on the 26th, but it did! :) I'm going to be making the Icarus shawl from this past summer's Interweave Knits. I've been eying the pattern since it came out. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm very much looking forward to doing another large(ish) lace project, and one that I don't have to rush on. I can just take my time and enjoy the process. It will be wonderful.

To add to that, I bought my very first pair of Addi Turbos specifically for the project, I can't wait to use them. I took them out after I bought them and..well..they're wonderful..and I didn't even knit anything with them yet! This could be bad, I'm probably going to want Addis in every size now. I can't afford that as a poor college student :/

Now to get some sleep so I can knit more tomorrow! Time is running out.

Christmas crunch pain

I've been pretty much knitting constantly since I got home on Saturday. My hands are killing me. My thumb was actually bleeding when i stopped knitting tonight. Guess I didn't have as good a callus built up as I thought I had.

The biggest show for all the knitting I've been doing is Brian's satchel. It's been felted, has dried for over a day, and is ready to assemble now.

Pre-felting:

post-felting, ready to dry:


This was my first time felting...and it was really cool! I'll be assembling that in the morning.

I have two thirds of the base for MancalaMia done plus six of the 14 cups knitted. I should have taken pictures of them...but I was tired of looking at them.... Hopefully I can get other six small cups, two big cups, and the rest of the base knitted and felted tomorrow, plus dried and assembled in time to ship them (plus satchel) out on Thursday. I just might go crazy.

After that I have to finish Jill's Branching Out and Mom's Bristow.

I'm starting to think this isn't going to happen. Especially if the joints in my hands don't start feeling better. My thumb I can put a band aid on, but there's not much I can do about the joints :(

Let's hope things start looking up with my Christmas knitting....

Movin' Out.... big honkin' post.

Time to pack things up to head back home to Auburn tomorrow. I'm really not looking forward to sorting through all the crap that's piled up on my floor and shoving things into bags and boxes, which will then be stuffed into my soccer mom van.

Packing might not be so bad if I didn't have to pack for both the cold winter of Central New York and the heat of the Bahamas (vacationing there with Scott's family after Christmas). Oh....and if I didn't have to stuff my two chinchillas and one snake plus their cages into the car...with the addition of a friend's snake I'm sitting. Oh and I need to decide what I want to knit over break. I.e. what to take from my stash, what WIPs to take, etc. This could get interesting.....

/whining...maybe.....who am I kidding? I never stop whining.

Anyway...on the knitting front. I've picked up a few more projects as Christmas gifts.

Here we have some Cascade 220 with which to make MancalaMia for my lovely sister Lori:

And here is a half finished (small) satchel (Cascade 220 as well) for Lori's husband Brian:



I may buy more yarn to make a second satchel and give one to Brian, and one to my other sister Jill's husband, Tim. Following? Yeah, I thought not.


Anyway, I finally finished the left front of Bristow. You can see the mistake I made on the first cable a lot more clearly in this picture. And I finally got a shot that does justice to the color! Wooo! Still trying to decide what to do with the first two cables on the other side before I cast that side on.

Oh and I re-started the scarf for Scott's father in Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande (I convinced Scott). Not very far on that though....

Think I can finish all that before Christmas?
It'll take a miracle.

P.s. Sorry for the weird picture-ness....blogger is being cranky :/

*hides*

I just bought yarn. I'm supposed to be on a yarn diet....but I had to. It's going to be for a gift....

16 balls of Knitpicks andean silk in hollyberry. For Bristow.

It's going to be a Christmas gift.

If it gets here in time, and I can knit fast enough......


I want it to get here now!!!