Christmas FOs

Ha! It's come and gone. Thank you Jesus! ;-) I've been a knitting fool and have finished tons of things and still have things on the needles that I really want to finish (ahem...Tangled Yoke Cardigan!)

I think the biggest hit of the Christmas Knitting was the handtowels for my Aunt. They turned out about half as big as I wanted them too but that was a complicated cable pattern! (I used the Koolhaas pattern) And they were big enough that they would drape nicely to be decorative =D:

They are hanging on full sized towels there. You may be able to see the pattern better in this picture:

I was at my parents and good pictures were hard to get.

The House Hats, weren't as popular as I would have hoped. Well, little boys are little boys, but they did put them on to model for their Auntie Bug:


They all managed to have a funny look on their face in at least one of the pictures I took.

Individually:

Cole (the oldest):

Zack (the middle one):

And Luke (the youngest):
As you can see the two older ones are USC fans and so their hats matched. I have a feeling they may be more thankful after the ski trip they just went on. We'll see =D

I finished off my Holiday Gift Giving by making coffee cup sleeves for the UI Team Holiday Party. We do a White Elephant Gift Exchange every year:

The lucky recipient? Why, Snoop Frog herself.

Still on the needles for me?

The aforementioned Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I'm about 2 inches away from starting the tangled part of the yoke. This is going to be my take somewhere and knit project (like to knit night or knitterday).

The Log Cabin Blanket. This puppie is about half way done and is big enough now that it has to be a stay at home and watch tv sort of project. It's final dimensions will be 36 x 36. Not bad. The baby it's for comes any day now but I don't go to visit until the end of January. I will get it done.

And finally, the Sweetheart Sock for my Mommy. These are just because and have no timeline. They'll be my knit on the train project. The first one is getting a heel as we speak.

And that my friends is my knitting update.

Ah-ha-ha, don't think you're getting away so easily! A self-portrait (mostly) pictorial of my holidays:

Shaun and me:

At my parents (in front of their tree) with our jammies that his parents sent us:


Hiking in the Santa Barbara Hills:


At the beach in Cambria:


Wine tasting in Paso Robles (look at those red teeth!):


Hiking in Carmel (and experimenting with the timer function on the camera):


(still hiking in Carmel and looking a little crazy ^^^ READY TO COME HOME!!!)

Addendum to my last post... and extra startitis

Bah.

Awesome as the BMPs are, they don't hold a candle to these.

Perhaps I should take the weirdly hugeness as a sign that pirate argyles are better than space invaders.

Post Christmas Startitis

Phew.

It's over. Christmas, that is, and all the knitting that came with it. I finished everything I had planned to knit (except for one pair of socks, which I'm working on now. It's okay, though. Tobin got a road bike instead), and all of the knits have been given.

I'm such a bad blogger,though. In the fury of knitting and blocking and wrapping and giving, I neglected to photograph just about every single project. I think there's one somewhere of Tobin's grandmother in the shawl I made her, and I posted about Buck's Green Tea Socks way back when I finished them. Everything else, though, has been lost to blog posterity.

Now that all the gifts are done, I'm experiencing a rush of startitis. In the last four or five days, I have started:

FINALLY started the BMPs from Knitty that have been sitting over there in the "Queue" column for months and months. They look weirdly huge, though, so I'm putting them on pause until Tobin returns from his East Coast trip and can try them on.

Blue Sky Alpacas' High Neck Cable, in Rowan Felted Tweed, except that I didn't have time to get the pattern so I was making it up as I went. I tried it on in Tucson and looked like Baron Harkonen, so this is going to be frogged and turned into a version of Rowan's Demi. I'm in a designing mood, though, so I'm going to try and copy this and knit it based on EZ's no-seam saddle shoulder sweater. Heh. We'll see how that goes.

Ogee Lace Shawl. I took the Ogee lace pattern from my Barbara Walker Treasury Vol. 1. I have a ball of Baruffa Cashwool in chocolate brown, and had this crazy idea to make a shawl for my wedding. Eh. I have six months.

Tabi Socks from Veronik Avery's Knitting Classic Style, which K-Bull gave me for my birthday. With the gaw-jus Colinette Jitterbug that K-Bull also gave me for my birthday.

I have the yarn for the Tangled Yoke cardigan -- Rowan Felted Tweed in Treacle, but I want to swatch a variation for it. I loved the original sweater that Eunny posted on her blog. She has horizontal cables winding around the hips of the cardi that echo the tangled yoke. I love the balance this gives the sweater. So, I have plans to see if I can figure out how to do this, based on the charts in IK. (see? Design-y mood).

I know from experience that, when I get into these bouts of startitis, more than half of these projects will fall by the wayside, but that's okay. I'm enjoying them while they last!

Hopefully they'll at least last long enough to post some pictures.

dipping a toe back into the frog pond

Golly, my knittas have been quiet. I suppose I'm the only *ahem* loquacious one in the bunch. Okay, like, superfluously so.

*triple bonus for using two of my favorite unnecessarily large words in a row!*

Today I'll be picking up my needles for the first time in months. Our December Fatterday Knitterday is upon me, and it's time to knit or perish. And by "perish" I mean do nothing but sit around tittering and stuffing my face with the crack mix MCR always buys. Evil.


Before I can be reborn as a knitter, I feel that I need to confess my sins and renounce the works that have turned me into the knitting blackguard that I am today.

• The Sizzle (on needles). You're lovely, and one day I look forward to being annoyed with you (in all your finished glory) for not containing by boobs properly. For now, though, you have no place. It's December, which doesn't lend itself to rust-colored knit tank tops with deep Vs.
• The Glee (on needles). So close, and yet, so UFO. You require a lot of stockinette just to repay me with a white, short-sleeved, cropped cardigan in January. You'll just have to be patient.
• Mr. and Mrs. Dashing (on needles). Maybe I wasn't ready. Maybe neither of us were. All I know is that your cables are irregular, your thumb looks funny, and I bound you off too soon. I still have hope for us.
  
• Widdershins (in knitting Purgatory, begging forgiveness). *hisses* Maybe one day I'll frog you down to the gusset and take you on again. Don't hold your breath, though.
• All my unmade Christmas knits that were never born because of vile Widdershins (in skeins in my closet). Sorry, my lovelies. Maybe next year.

Today, I plan to start fresh. I plan to indulge, and glut myself on an easy pattern and fabulous fiber. I'm going to bust out my unforgivably gorgeous Lorna's Laces Worsted Multi, and I'm going to cast on for Marnie's variation of the One Skein Wonder.

Hoping for redemption,
SnoopFrog

the little skeink that couldn't

There's been nothing but silence from the Frog House, and for good reason. The Widdershins have broken me. After weeks of knitting, frogging, knitting, tinking, knitting, tinking, and frogging some more, I finally reached the end of my tether. I'm only barely able to talk about it. The wounds are still too fresh. I feel like a jilted lover, and I'd rather be crying into a cup of hot cocoa while watching Sense and Sensibility than reliving my pain.

In spite of all my care and caution (read: lifelines, measuring, and counting stitches like a Gringotts goblin would galleons), I still got bitten. I turned the heel only to find that these socks wouldn't fit my mother unless A) she's been secretly binding her feet for the last ten years, or B) I found a way to travel back in time and give them to her as a gift for her 5th birthday rather than her 50th. How the hell did this happen? I'm flummoxed. I followed that f'in pattern to the letter, and yet somehow things went terribly awry.

And now... I can't even bear to look at them. It took every ounce of my willpower not to set fire to the unfinished socks, needles and working yarn still attached. I might have even tossed in the pattern and Ziploc baggie for good measure.

Ever since the incident, I'm finding it difficult to be enthusiastic about knitting. I've worked a bit on my long-lost Mr. and Mrs. Dashing, but to no avail. My knitting heart is tender, and wonders if it can ever love again.

NaKniSweMo update from Lil Purl

I'm very close with my Beau. I have finished the main parts of the front and back and have blocked it to start my seaming. After seaming, I'm working on the neckband, buttonband and attaching the sleeves:



Here are my sleeves. I'm working on them simultaneously to minimize the variation in my gauge.










This knit has gone faster than I thought since I only started a couple of weeks ago. The only problems I've had is some of the laddering that happens when I've switched from knit and purl Some of the Rowan pattern is also confusing. It's fairly simple but some of the written descriptions were not as clear as I would have liked. "Work the same as back until 36 rows less" is a strange instruction. 36 rows less? Wouldn't it be more intuitive to give dimension?

On another note, I finished staining and varnishing my stash's beautiful new home some time back. Here she is:
Isn't she a beauty?

NaKniSweMo

Sure, we're a day or two late in starting, but that's okay -- we have 28 more! Who's in with me? Come on! Knit a sweater in the month of November, with Knitgrrl and the group over on Ravelry.

I'm going to make this one:
It's the Star-Crossed Cardigan, over on Anthropologie. I'm going to make it out of some chocolate brown Cascade Eco Wool from the stash, on size 9 needles, with long sleeves. I haven't cast on, but I've swatched and sketched and I think I've figured out how it works. Sure, I've made sweaters before, and in less than a month, too, but the challenge here for me is to do this sweater and the 3 pairs of socks and the shawl I have lined up for holiday gifts. Woo hoo!

Who's with me? Come on girls! Let's knit sweaters!

Meet Vera

5 oz of Lorna's Laces superwash merino roving, spun into 280 yards of somewhere between dk and worsted. I'll have to check the wpi after she's all washed. But here she is!


The roving was bright pink, with brown, pale pink and some olive greens. I didn't want it to end up in stripes, because I was afraid of any pooling that would happen (see the ugly Breeze sock fiasco), so instead I plied two singles together, offsetting the colors, to let whatever interactions happen that wanted to happen.




Overall, I'd say the skein wants to be bright pink. The pink is so dominant. But there are these interesting smudges of browns and greens as well. I can't wait to knit this into the shifting sands scarf.

I feel like I'm getting a much better handle on this whole spinning thing. It seems like I'm stuck in a bit of a "somewhere between dk and worsted" rut, though. I'll have to try really hard to spin something... thicker. Or thinner. I suppose either way would be new to me!

My new stash home

I finally bought a new dresser to house my stash. I can't wait! We bought it at an awesome furniture sale so now all I have to do is stain it and presto, my yarn has a new home! Check it out. Isn't it beuuuuutiful!


Currently, my stash is stored in the sad coffee table so hopefully, I can get it out of there soon!
On another note, here are updates to my current WIPs. First is the shifting sands scarf for my mom, second is the clementine shawlette for my bridesmaids:This weekend, the ladies are knitting ornaments at Snoop's house. I can't wait! =)

Addendum to my previous post

Augh.

Etsy, DAMN YOU AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL HAND DYED FIBER.




Fiber diet too. Starting now.

:(

But I have 8 oz of merino/tencel winging it's way to me! Yippee!! :)