2009 Roundup

Announcing the grand totals from 2009!

Regular knitting

- one camera bag
- 2 adult hats
- 7 pairs of adult socks
- 1 baby sweater
- 2 Lucy bags
- 1 pair baby Soc-a-Mocs
- 2 market bags
- 2 scarves
- 1 Easy Lace shrug
- 1 Elefante
- 1 teeny tiny turtle

Charity knitting

- 6 adult hats
- 3 toddler hats
- 1 sweater
- 15 pairs of kid socks
- 3 pairs of adult socks
- 9 hat/mitten sets

December Roundup

Not many Christmas gifts were knitted this year, so I had time to do some charity knitting.



For charity:
1. Teal hat and mittens, knitted for charity
2. Tan cabled hat and mittens
3. Two more hats that may or may not get matching mittens.

4. Elefante, completed on the day after Christmas. One day too late, but loved just the same.


5. Tiny (but adult-sized) Chouwi socks for some tiny, friendly feet.

6. A teeny, tiny turtle. What could be cuter?

At the last minute.

Oh, look, it's a last minute blog to show off some finished objects to make sure they count in the year 2009. (That's right, I'm not out at a wild party, I'm sitting at my computer writing a blog.)(At least I'm not asleep...)

I made a pair of mittens to go with the hat.



Plus, 2 more hats.



PLus a hat and some mittens to match. They were finished, oh let's say, approximately 10 minutes ago. Just in time. They look mis-shapen, but I think they'll both fit the same person.



All sized for a small adult and all made out of Paton's Classic wool. All are for charity.

And last, but not least, a tiny turtle.



Fiddly, but oh so cute! Don't you just want to make one?

Gifts Received

DH gave me several knitting-related gifts this year that he wrapped up in a unique way.

He said that knitting is really just a bunch of knots, and while he was unable to knit, he could tie knots and so he did.

The presents were all connected one by one with a gold cord, all "knitted" together.




And this is what is what they were.



Two knitting books (I was going to type the titles here, but I bet you can read for yourself), a soft and cuddly lamb, and a gift certificate for my LYS.

Lovely!

Gifts given

The t
I wrote that and then ate supper. I wonder what I was starting to say....

The tiger exploded.
The torch was passed.
The truck drove 5000 miles per hour.
The triangles are all isoceles.
The trapezoids were squished.

None of those are it. Okay, I'll start over again.
_____________

I didn't knit many Christmas gifts this year. I made Sixth sense socks, blogged about here, for my MIL. The NY trip was delayed due to the incredible amount of snow we got, so if you know her, don't tell her about them, 'kay?

The Chouwi socks (from Judy Sumner's book) were finished for RB. She's the one with the tiny feet and is always a pleasure to knit for. (Plus, I usually have to rip out some rows. What do you mean I'm ready for the toe? Surely not already!)




The last thing I made was an elephant for DD#1. She's been wanting this for months now, tried to knit a leg, gave up (it's very fiddly), and endlessly begged for it for Christmas.

She received the body and legs.

The rest was finished the next day.



















Pictures by DD.
Pattern: Elefante by Susan B. Anderson
Yarn: Red Heart stripes (I don't remember the name, but I like the yarn) plus some yellow for the head.

Snow!

We live right in the path of the snowstorm, and boy! did we get snow! At least 14 inches, and most likely more (considering our precise method of sticking a ruler in the snow. When it was getting covered we taped another one on the end.)

You'd think that would make good knitting time, but instead, I've been lots of other things.

Things like shovelling out the cars, finding all the kids' snow gear, fixing a pair of snow pants, drying all the snowgear, baking cookies and pumpkin bread, putting up the Christmas tree and other decorations, working on Christmas cards and finishing a puzzle.




Plus, washing dishes and dishes and dishes. It's amazing how many more dishes we use when we're all stuck in the house and bored (and baking).

Here's some pics:

Out the back door:



Out the front door:



When I finally put on shoes and walked out to the road,

Up the hill:



And down the hill:



Nicely plowed and ready to be driven on.

Another bright hat

Tonight was the first home basketball game, so I took my knitting. (I took it to the away game last week too, but after working and then driving 1.5 hours on the beltway in rush hour, I was too exhausted to knit.)

I didn't have anything good (meaning portable) to knit, though, so I started a hat.

Here it is at the beginning of the JV game. (Don't bother looking for DD#2, she's not in this pic.)



Here it is at the end of the Varsity game.



I'm ready for the decreases, I do believe.

The time it takes for me to knit the body of a simple hat...is equal to...two basketball games (or a field hockey award ceremony).

Quick update

Sorry, I didn't mean to keep you in suspense....

It literally took me a couple more hours to take the sweater out of the washer to find...

not much difference.

I laid it on the bed under the fan to dry, and then remember that machine that sits next to my washer. You know, the dryer. The machine that automatically shrinks any new shirt that DD#2 owns.

So, I put it in the dryer for awhile.

And it shrunk.....some.

Not as much as I'd like, but some.

So.... I might do it again, the next time I get up my nerve.

But not today.

It takes awhile to be brave enough to intentionally shrink something, and today's not that day.

Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

But, I don't need to be very brave to knit, so that's what I'll do.

On the other hand....

If I don't get the sweater out of the washer, I can't do another load.

But, it's scary.

Maybe I'll just shut down my productive day and go knit in the corner.

It'll still be there tomorrow.

Ahhh....a day off

It's a wonderful thing: I have a day off today.

I'm not going anywhere, not even the grocery store. (Hey, we have milk and bread and coffee and chocolate. What else do we need?) I do have to go out twice to pick up the kids, but I'm not going anywhere else.

So far I have done a load of dishes, 2 loads of laundry, and vacuumed. I also sorted through my clothes and got out the winter ones (it is December, after all, and sooner or later we have to be getting cold weather and not just more rain.)

I've decided to try to shrink my teal cardigan from several years ago so it's now in the washer. (I'm afraid to look to see what happened, so when I get up the courage I'll check it out and maybe blog about it tomorrow.)

Here's where I am with my knitting:

I made some mittens to match the hat:



I've started the Mirepoix bodice. I've been knitting it inside out to hopefully help with the tension,



but here it is right sides out. It still looks rather blurry, but it's too hard to spread out. (I'm going with no pink and hopefully that's the right decision since I won't be at all interested in ripping this out and trying again.)



I'm on square 11 on the Curve of Pursuit afghan. It's getting too big to take a good picture, but not big enough to stop. I'm still loving it, though.



I've been making the Chouwi socks from Judy Sumner's book "Knitted Socks East and West" and they're a lot of fun. I've run out of yarn, though, so ordered some more yarn that will hopefully coordinate with this.



And, I might've cast on for another hat. I have nothing portable (see above) and there's a lot of this in our future.



DD#2 made the JV basketball team and there's a game tomorrow.

And I have nothing to knit!

Computers. The big time warp.

Last night I attempted some Christmas shopping. I added 8 items to my cart, one for each person on my list. Then I got to the shipping. The cheapest was $15, which was 3/5 of my order's cost so I said forget it and deleted the whole thing.

Tonight I spent two hours searching for penguin earrings on the internet.

Yes, you heard me. Two hours. It's not that I couldn't find any, it's that I couldn't decide.

They're not even a Christmas gift, they're for me, so I can't even justify spending two hours shopping on the internet.

And how did you spend YOUR evening? (Doing some knitting, I hope.)