Category: Knitting

I have this metal "tree" — it came from Smith and Hawken and it is for hanging holiday ornaments on.  I like it a lot and didn't want to put it up when the holidays came to a close.

So, I made little balls of yarn from scrap and hung the yarn in place of ornaments.  And left it out.  On the yarn storage unit sideboard in my dining room.  I really liked it.  It was unusual….distinctively mine.

But Harry liked it too.  So much for interior design.  It is now a very elegant cat toy.

He has a very decadent life style, as you can see.

So much for my decorating.

[For those of you with good eyes, you can see yarn bits of Geranium, Marble Angel, and my first, unnamed Paintbrush colorway]

All finished!  Complete with vintage mother-of-pearl buttons and hand-dyed ribbon.

Ellie described how these gauntlets were supposed to look, and after lots of procrastination, I was surprised by how easily they came together.  Having never written a real pattern before, I was worried that my notes from the first glove wouldn't create a second one to match, but fortunately, they were easy to follow, and such a quick knit!

They were an especially big hit with Dragon, our tailless cat.

I'm so glad she is happy with them!  A ten year old's whims can be so ephemeral.

Really, if you don't have an Auntie Gail, you want one!  Ollie got socks in the mail from her yesterday and he is overjoyed.

Very boyish, very soft.  He was in love from the minute we opened the package.  Her sister, Ollie's Auntie Ann, knits too and has just started blogging.  If you want to see some Kaffe Fasset and other amazing knitting, you need to go and look!

Thank you Auntie Gail!  You made Ollie's weekend!

We got a little bit more knitting in this week than usual, starting with inaguration day.

I finished off my 5×5 scarf.  I've got a picture of it blocking, and need to take one of it on — I've worn it all week.

Ellie begged some of my silk/cashmere yarn off of me to start a little lovey for a friend's baby, and she sat in front of the fire knitting all day.

I'm close to finished with a couple of baby sweaters that were languishing for a bit of final details, and hope to get the finished up this week and pick back up with my Manos Shrug.

I know a lot of you have been wondering if I gave up knitting for the holidays  (I say that tongue in cheek because, of course, you know I would never give up knitting).  It has been sort of busy around here and I've been doing a lot more thinking and ready about knitting that actually knitting, but I do have a few things to show you.

This is my 5×5 rib scarf, knit from Cascade's Quatro.  I'm knitting it on much smaller needles than recommended to get a very dense fabric and I like it a lot.  It's very skinny and is taking forever, but I think the final scarf will be very satisfying.  I've done a felted purse out of this same yarn and thought it would be fun to wear them together.

Short row ballet slippers — knitted from a bulky weight Blue Faced Leicester that I dyed.  They're knit on two circulars and it's quite a fun pattern.

I think the yarn looks prettier in stockinette than the garter stitch sole.

This next yarn is a bulky weight cotton, purchased to knit *something* for a friend who is newly pregnant.  It's a July baby, so I'm thinking either a 6/9 months size sweater or perhaps a baby sack or dress once she knows the baby's sex.  I love the soft, pale green yarn from Blue Sky Alpaca. 

This

is some yarn I've dyed for my favorite fantasy project.  For over a year now, I've wanted to knit myself socks using mismatched hand-dyed yarns.  I patiently compiled yarn from the end of cones and have two and three ounce skeins of soft different merino plies, but all knit to the same gauge.  I'm going to start in on a pair of socks, mixing the yarns up, although I haven't decided yet exactly how they will be done.  It seemed like a fabulous idea in my mind as I dreamed about it over the months, but now that I see the yarns dyed up I wonder if I haven't made a terrible mistake. It will be interesting to see what happens!

Finally, there is yarn I have just sent away; back to school with my eldest.  This yarn:

a beautiful BFL, has gone with him because his girlfriend wants to knit him a hat.  Can you say perfect girlfriend?  I sent along some sock yarn, a faux fair isle yarn, some dpns for socks and a basic pattern because a girl never knows when she's going to feel the urge to knit socks.  Really.  The perfect girlfriend.

On that happy note, I'm off to make chocolate pudding and cast on some socks of my own.