Done

I worked and worked today and I finished the Phoenix Tears Scarf. I like it--I think. It wasn't hard or expensive since I did not use Colinette yarns but put together fiery and feathery yarns that were in my budget. And it's snowing. Ugh.

Feasting & Knitting

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my brother's house. The food was good and bountiful, and the service was excellent. And Colton was camera-shy, as are all 14 yr. olds, but Uncle Durwood sneaked up on him. He's growing up too fast. (Colton, not Uncle Durwood, he doesn't seem to have grown up at all.)











After the meal Grandma and Diego stayed out of the way while the rest of us played Wii Bowling and Andy tried his hand at Wii Boxing.










While waiting for my turn at Bowling I knitted a hat for Mom to give her friend but nobody took my picture and I forgot to take a picture of the finished hat before giving it to Mom, but here's the parts and I promise to take a picture before she gives it away.

It was a fun day.


I've been knitting along on the Phoenix Tears scarf. I'm into the Boa section which will segue into the feathery plumes and tears in 8 inches or so. It's going to be cool looking and I can see I'm going to want to make it again to try out other ideas I have about it's composition. Can't follow the pattern too closely, you know.

Scarf!

The Phoenix Tears Scarf is looking cool, although I sort of wish I had figured out how to gradually add the orange Fun Fur rather than have an abrupt change but I like it. I carried the Squiggles into the orange a couple of rows so that doesn't just stop. Next I want to work in the Boa which looks like muppet eyelashes and its color name is Phoenix. Coincidence? I think not.

Everyone have a Happy Thanksgiving and eat too much of everything. You know you're going to do that anyway, now you have permission. It's only once a year.

Ack!

We had 2.7 inches of snow last night! Durwood thinks it makes the apple tree look like it's decorated for Christmas. I think it looks like slippery roads and wet pants legs at work.





After months of resisting, I succumbed to the lure of the Phoenix Tears Scarf. I got some Squiggles yarn at Loops & Links on Saturday and that was the final ingredient that made me cast on last night. I have been looking at novelty yarns ever since I got the book trying to find the perfect feather and fire looking yarns and I think I've got them. We shall see. (Besides, I had to have some blog-able knitting, didn't I?)






Oh, and here's Durwood with his Maple Pumpkin Cheesecake pie. All I can say is, YUM.

Enchante Avec Beret

(Translation: I like how the beret turned out.) I thought it was going slowly but it finished very quickly, I realize now, because I was afraid I would run out of the gray yarn so I knit faster to finish before I did run out. (Wha???? I don't know, but that's what it seemed like.)

I highly recommend this pattern. (It's the House Beret from Charmed Knits.) It's very straightforward, no tricky maneuvers to increase or decrease, and the top ends up looking awesome. See?

Next I need to get the address from Chocolate Sheep so I can get these Connor Caps on their way to their new owners.


*whispering* This ends the part of my WIPs I can show you. The rest is stealth knitting. I promise to cast on something blog-able later so you're not bored.

Santa Came Early!

See? We played most of the afternoon. I did knit a few rows and I did write my word quota for the day but we Wii-ed. And we Wii-ed. I fully expected to get up this morning to find Durwood sacked out in the living room with a Wii controller dangling from his wrist.

Thanks, Santa! I musta been a really good girl this year. And it said in the paper this morning that Wii games are good for motor skills, strength, flexibility and balance. So it's a fitness tool. Not a toy.

'Nother Conner Cap

The Connor Cap turned out so cute and took so little time that I decided to make a Beret too, but use the pearl gray as the main color. See? It's turning out cute too. Next comes 3 more rows of the cadet blue then I'll finish it with the gray. I'm liking it alot. Hope the recipient does too. Wouldn't you love to see the faces when the hats are given out? Me too.

Gotta go. It's time to start piling up my NaNoWriMo words for today.

I Quit...

making Special Olympics scarves because I finally ran out of acrylic yarn to make them out of. I was determined last night to crochet until all of the white and blue worsted was in the scarf and I did it. Whew. I love them too. I can picture the looks on the organizers' faces when they open the box thinking that I didn't knit by the rules, but then I picture six young women athletes being thrilled with their boa-like scarves, very Theda Bara, as my Grandma Babe would say. A girl can't have too many fluffy scarves in her life.

One Cap Finished

I had to knit a bit after I finished writing my word quota last night and I finished the Connor Cap just before midnight. I wove (weaved?) in the tails this afternoon after finishing today's words and here it is all ready to keep some boy's head warm this winter. I used Lion Wool in Cadet Blue, Pearl Gray, and Goldenrod, and the House Hat pattern from Charmed Knits. I like it so much I think I'm going to make a House Beret from the same source using the gray as the main color. Who knew there'd be a shade of blue that I like?

Capping

Wednesday evening I cast on for the Connor Cap. I tried circular needles but they made my hands ache so I switched to DPNs. Those were a teensy bit short for the number of stitches so I had to buy some longer ones at Patti's Thursday (along with a couple skeins of yarn, of course, since I can't be in a yarn shop and not buy yarn, it would be rude. Besides I wanted it so I can knit more Meathead hats with some sale yarn I got in Missoula. I'm not just buying yarn willy nilly, oh no, not me, I would never do that. [yeah, right, Barbara, pull our other leg]). I knit a bit on the Connor Cap Thursday night at knit night, but mostly I spent the time reading the first few pages of my novel, Horizon, to the knitting crowd. That was a terrific idea as they loved it, showered me with praise, and rekindled my enthusiasm for going over the manuscript for typos (the only thing left to do) and then mustering up my guts and starting to work to find an agent. Ooh, scary. But having the Horizon manuscript ready for publication is my second 2008 resolution and since I accomplished the first one (knit myself a sweater) I feel like I should, for the very first time in my life, accomplish this one too. Go me! I can do it!

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again. National Novel Writing Month for those unfamiliar with it. The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel manuscript in 30 days. We're shooting for quantity rather than quality here, folks, but it's still an uphill climb. I'm nearly halfway toward the goal, which is good since today's the 15th, and so am fitting my knitting around bouts of writing. But it's fun to be doing both of my favorite hobbies one after the other, kind of like tag-team hobbies. Anyway, after all that rambling, here's a picture of the Connor Cap as it was last night.



(Sorry to talk your ears off this morning but I'm feeling pretty darned good because Don's off on a little overnight and I'm pretending it's the old days. He'll be back later today and we'll both like each other a lot better for a while until we know it's time for him to go away for one night again. Hey, it works for us.)

DAM Gloves Done!

Last night after supper I very carefully finished the thumb and wove in all the tails to finish the third (second usable) glove for Durwood. Ta-da! All done and he likes them. They'll be a great addition to the Car Hat so he won't freeze his hands while driving. They could use some blocking but I don't think I'll get them back from him anytime soon.

And here's the yarn I'm using to make a House Hat to donate to Chocolate Sheep's call for Connor Caps. Even though I'm not much of a fan of blue, I like these three colors together (they're Connor's school colors). The pattern calls for 16" circs but I can't seem to use circular needles without my hands just aching. I always end up switching to DPNs. Anyone else have the same problem? Any solutions?

Second Glove?

What second glove? Why, I haven't started it yet.







What really happened is... there was something odd about the thumb so I tried to frog just the thumb, frogged too far down below the 10 thumb rows and couldn't save it. Can you tell I was frustrated?

Five!

Five fingers knitted. *uh, uh, uh* And, as you can see in this picture, not a moment too soon! I'm three fingers into the other glove too so his fingers should be toasty by noon today.


Here's an F.Y.I. for anyone overly impressed with my glove-making skills--I knitted the pinkie inside out on glove #1 the first go-round. I don't know how I managed to do that--either I picked up the stitches backwards or I picked up the needle and then twisted it. I also made the first two fingers so long that a lizard could have worn the glove. For anyone wondering, there are holes left between each of the fingers when you're knitting. I don't think you can avoid them. I just sew them closed when I'm weaving in all the tails.

One! Uh, uh, uh.

One finger knitted.

Last week one day Durwood touched me and I nearly got frostbite. His hands were so cold! And we were indoors. I don't think the man has blood. But that goosebump-producing event made me decide to knit the poor frozen guy some nice thick wool gloves. I'm using the leftovers from making his car hat and this pattern. Oh, and I went up to US 11 needles so I didn't have to redo the pattern.

The Yarn That Never Ends

How come the beautiful soft wool yarn skeins run out at warp speed and the cheap-ass scratchy acrylic yarns never do? I am now in mid-scarf number 5 for the Special Olympics Winter Games because I don't want that acrylic stuff hanging around because I'll never ever use it again because it's scratchy and it's blue and blue is one of my least favorite colors unless it's the turquoise blue of the ocean and I'm standing next to it ready to leap into it. Or walk into it. Anyway, the extra novelty yarns that I've been knitting with the acrylic keep running out so I have to go get more to use up the white and Delft blue and I see that the muppet eyelash and the hairy stuff I have now are going to run out long before the worsted is. See in the picture? I intend to knit on this scarf with my huge US 50 needles until one of the skeins runs out (probably the white muppet eyelash stuff) but I bet I'll still have yarn left for another scarf. This yarn will never end. Do you think this yarn is made from ham? (That's an inside joke--our adult kids bought a ham to eat one year when Durwood and I were gone at Christmas and the ham never got smaller. They ate it for every meal and in every way they could possibly think of and it never went away, so after two weeks they threw the rest away.)

I do have a normal FO to show you. I finished the second pair of convertible mitts and like it better. I even managed to knit the second flap (condom?) on DPNs once I had the little ribbing done, picked up the stitches across the mitten back, and joined them together. At first it was a bit like wrestling a porcupine but it got better once the flap got longer. Thanks to Durwood for the excellent modeling!