*squee*

I bought a membership in the WEBS Skein of the Month club. Every month they send a skein and a pattern.

January's yarn is pretty! It's Sheep Number Three from The Sheep Shop Yarn Company. The skein I have is colorway g109, which has more green in it than the picture shows. The pattern is Silky Leaves Scarf, which will be my first time knitting from a chart (you do have to start somewhere, after all).

Once I finish my clapotis - yes, I'm making one for myself out of Schaefer Miss Priss in the Jane Addams colorway - I'll start on this scarf. I think it's going to be pretty!

Work has been very busy lately, so I haven't had as much knitting time. I do need to make myself a new scarf, since I bought a new coat, but I haven't had a chance to peruse the stash to find the right yarn.

Pictures

Oh, what the heck.

Father-in-law in earflap hat -


Made with Lion Brand Wool-ease thick & quick, took less than 24 hours to finish. Based on the Camo Earflap Cap.



The trio of Clapotis:



First one is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport, the other two are Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK. The pattern is here.

The armwarmers:



First pair is Lime & Violet Sasquatch Sock, second is Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock. Pattern is Elegant Gauntlets from
The Knitting Experience: Book 2: The Purl Stitch

Nephew's hat:


Yarn is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool and Brooks Farm Acero held together. Pattern is Brother-in-law basket weave hat.


Dad's scarf:


Yarn is Lion Brand Wool-ease Chunky. Pattern is Under Water.

Niece's scarf:


Yarn is Jo-Ann Sensations Spectrum. Pattern is Drop Stitch Scarf.


That was all the gifts. I was finishing up Dad's scarf on Christmas Eve, but everything was done on time. One of my resolutions is to start holiday knitting by February ;-)

Down to the wire

Finally finished the armwarmers for the nieces. I'm not totally happy with them, but they're damn good for a first effort with something like that on small needles. And if the girls want better I can make more for next year ;-)

Still need to tuck some ends on the clapotis (clapoti?) I made for Mom, MiL, and Dan's aunt. Given that it's all of maybe 2-3 per, that's not going to be a big problem. I want to do some blocking of them, but not full-on pinned down.

Have things for other niece and Dan's dad, too. Still need to finish the thing for my dad. Debating making a scarf to match what I made for the nephew.

I'm debating what to make after this. I do know one thing, it will be something just for me.

Gift knitting

We went to my parents' for an early Thanksgiving celebration the weekend before. I'm glad I decided to go ahead and try one of the in-process arm warmers on the nieces, because while it fit the younger one just fine, it didn't even come close on the older one. She's in competitive gymnastics, and, wow, that girl has some muscles.

I also decided to switch yarn for the older one's set. I had been working on her pair, and she didn't seem to like the yarn much. And after I thought about it, it's really not her. So I dug into my stash and came up with some jewel toned sock yarn that will be perfect for her. I'm on the first set of decreases already, which is pretty good since I didn't start it until Thursday.

I screwed up on the decrease section of the younger one's armwarmer, so I'm tinking back. I can't quite figure out where it is, but going back to the last decrease should help. I've been a little too mindless in my knitting on these, I screwed up on the older's one, too, but decided that a well placed-decrease would fix the extra stitch that creaped in there. And given how long it took me to find the increase, it won't be an obvious thing.

Still haven't made a final decision on the nephew's present, other than a funky hat of some sort. He's 15, almost 6 ft tall, and occasionally needs to be taken down a peg. I took the Wii with us, and he was being way over competitive until his dad took him down in a big way playing cow racing. Heh.

I had started a clapotis for Dan's aunt, but while working on it discovered that I seem to be allergic to alpaca. I had the whole itchy, watery eyes and itchy hands going. So I have some other yarn to use for it, now. And I think I'll make one for my SiL out of some Brooks Farm yarn I have in my stash.

Still not sure what to make for Dad. He's always a gift giving challenge.

I am feeling better, slowly getting back to decent energy levels. Had a sleep study awhile back and I will be getting a CPAP on Tuesday. I hope that helps the levels, too.

I'm almost done

Have I mentioned that I've never actually completed a knitting project yet?

*waits for the laughter to die down*

No, really, I haven't. Until I started on the projects I've documented here, all I've done were scarves that bored me to death to the point I frogged them or hid them in the closet.

All I have left on the hoodie is some seaming and 3 rows of knitting I can't do till I seam the hood. Given that I woke up at 4am for no good reason and I'm a bit fuzzy, I've put it aside for tomorrow or Saturday to finish.

While working on the clapotis, Dan asked if I would make one for his mom, too. So I just ordered that yarn. The one I'm working on is over half done.

I've been flipping through the projects on Ravelry to see what else I want to make for holiday gifts. I want to use some of my stash yarn, so the fact that I can search based on type of project and weight of yarn really rocks.

And tonight I have a sleep study, so to entertain myself after I get there I'm taking my knitting. Given that, I probably will be brain dead tomorrow (and might take tomorrow afternoon off work) I'm thinking the seaming will be on Saturday.

Yesterday men in trucks came and cleaned up our front beds. They were a complete and utter mess, weedy, unkempt. Dan and I hate yardwork, and it showed. Since we're going to sell the house in the spring, we decided to get it landscaped now to give the plants time to establish themselves. I think they did a great job. We'll have them back in the spring for touchups.

Hello, hello again

Am still here, just been busy. I have made wondrous progress on the hoodie, only one and a half sleeves to go plus seaming. It's going along better since I got my KnitPicks Options set. I got the nickel-plated tips for now, but I will probably get some Harmony tips, too. The yarn is sliding a lot easier on them than it was on the Denise set.






I know it's a little hard to see the detail, I suck at pictures. But that's the body and the hood, with the sleeve on the side.

I've also made good progress on the Clapotis. I'm on the straight part, and I have the pattern repeats down so it's somewhat of a mindless knit. The hoodie is top priority right now (the kid is growing, after all) but the Clapotis will be finished next.



The color is a bit off in this picture, it's better in the following one:



I've been adding tons of sock patterns to my Ravelry queue, because once I get all the holiday knitting done I'm going to make myself some socks. I have the yarn, after all ;-)

And I love knitting during conference calls. Since all of my meetings are via phone, I get a lot done. Most days I have at least one meeting, and there are very few of them that I have to give my whole attention to.

That was fun!

I flew out to LA last Thursday to visit a friend. I won't say to meet her, because I've known her for several years, but we hadn't actually ever seen each other in the flesh before. I had no trouble recognizing her at the airport, though.

We spent a large portion of our time playing with fiber - she spun roving, which fascinated me, and I worked on Mom's clapotis. I also had some animal time, since she has 4 cats and a dog. I don't get any animal time at home, since Dan's allergic to pet dander, so I take advantage of friends' pets whenever I can. I was warned that the 2 kittens really like fiber a lot, so I took a zippered bag to hold my project bags.

I needed help with an increase technique that I hadn't done before - it wasn't hard, but I wanted to see someone do it, and the video on Knittinghelp didn't help a lot. And I watched her spin and asked inane questions as she made a gorgeous yarn from some red/pink/black roving.

And Rainy introduced me to Deadwood. Yummmmm. And took me shopping at her LYS, A Mano Yarn Center, where she forced me to buy TOFUutsies and Trekking. You would not believe the arm twisting that took! Really!! When I have some time I'll take pictures of the pretty pretty sock yarn I bought.

It was a very fun and relaxing visit.

Mail yarny goodness!

I got my order from The Loopy Ewe today - 2 skeins of cashwool laceweight that's just gorgeous, and 5 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport to make a clapotis for my mom for Christmas - I had to, the colorway name is her name :-) I still need to figure out what modifications I need to make since I'm using sport weight instead of worsted. I might just start on it and see what I think of the results using the specified needle size.

And after not getting what I ordered from Knit2purl2, I have to find some special yarn for the friend elsewhere - it's really hard to find the specific colorway in stock. I bet, though, if I check the yarn store in Lafayette they might have it, since technically it's in Purdue's colors....