Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

We celebrated Chirstmas Day at my parent's home with my parents, DSis and her boyfriend, me and DH. It's always so fun to gather with them!

As for the knitting, I didn't get either my Dad's 2nd sock or my sister's second mitt completed, so I wrapped up the completed one and told them the second one was coming shortly. I would have finished the mitts, but I ran out of yarn with the second skein. Luckily, the store I bought the second skein from, Bonnie Knits, had more of the same dye lot, so on the 26th, I called in an order for a 2nd skein. I've been working on Dad's sock (I just knew I wouldn't be able to reknit a sock before Christmas). Both were happy, though, and are excited about getting them soon.

Here's the remake of Dad's sock (sometimes the remake is better than the original!):




My cross stitch is quivering a bit, because not only did I walk past my stitching basket (it's been in the far corner of the bedroom for quite some time now), but I picked it up and put in some actual stitches. (we're all recovering from the shock! :o):



I know it doens't look a whole lot different from the last picture I've posted of this (and that was a long, long time ago!), but I worked on the roof parts of the two side sections and started the roof on the main part of the house.

So very, very close...

I almost had Dad's second sock completed. I was about mid-way through the last pattern repetition (I was at the 15th row of a 32 row repeat) and just about ready to start the toe decreases (the home-stretch) when realization hit:



The 2nd sock has 6 fewer stitches than the first one. Yup. I cast on only 72 stitches instead of 76. You can kind of see that the width of the sock on the right is smaller than the one on the left. I just didn't notice until this morning.

Sooooooooo....after the 'deer in the headlights' look wears off of my face, I'll frog it and start again. I doubt that I'll get it done before Christmas, so I'll wrap up the first sock so Dad can at least see what he might have received. *sigh*

Well, it takes some of the stress out of these final days before Christmas. :o)


Abner is very sorry about Mummy's knitting, but wants to know if he can still chew on the needles... (Mummy, can I?)




Itchey doesn't even want to look at the offending 2nd sock...

They lied!!!

OK, I'm not a happy Chirstmas knitter.

I've been knitting away and Dad's 2nd sock is almost complete. (I love the 2 circ method!) I don't have it with me today, so I'll try to post a picture tomorrow. (2 posts in a row???? Scary.) Mum's socks are complete, but I wrapped them before getting a picture.

In between that, I've also started DSis's mitts. In my last installment, you saw the first completed mitt looking all happy and pretty and waiting for its mate. I started the second mitt and came across Dilemma #1:

1. They Lied!

The pattern called for one skein of Tahki Jolie. So, I bought one. I guess I could have bought two, and if I only needed one, I could have made a dainty scarf to match the mitts. But, I blindly believed. (It is Christmas, afterall)



Not even remotely enough. *sigh*

So, last Saturday, I frantically called around to local yarn stores to find another. I finally found one at a store called Bonnie Knits. It was a different dye lot, but as I bought the yarn some six months ago, I didn't think there was much hope. They're local, but not local enough (especially in all the holiday traffic) to drive to, I asked them to mail it to me. They said it would go out Monday, and don't you know, it was on my doorstep Monday night!

(Bonnie - a million thanks! You must really have some clout with the US postal service :o)


I was (kind of) prepared for Dilemma #2:

2. Those who created the notion of dye lots have a cruel sense of humor!



I have two skeins of entirely different pinks (You know, Blush and Bashful, DSis's signature cahlahs). The new skein is bigger than the first skein. So, after careful thought, I decided to start a new pair of mitts from the second skein.

I'll keep you posted.


DH and I don't exchange gifts. He's so hard to buy for and I just want everything. We don't exchange for birthdays or our anniversary either. It's so much less stressful, and besides, we have each other - awwwww. (Thankfully, we decided this a couple years after he got me the kitties :o)

But, our Niecelets and their Grammy (DH's Mom) do and so we received a whole boxful of lovely wrapped Christmas presents for me, DH and even the kitties to put under our carefully decorated, non-artificial ceramic tree (that incidentally, has been out since last Christmas).

As you can see, Grammy loves to spoil us at the holidays, and on Christmas Morn, gleeful shouts of 'Hey, I didn't know they sold that at the Dollar Store!' can be heard from here to Maryland :o)



Obviously, Itchey knows which gift is hers theirs and so after taking this photo, we thought it best to put it on the top shelf in the pantry. :o)

On the Christmas Home Stretch

I've been madly knitting away on Christmas gifties. That constant ticking of the clock counting down is all I can hear... (at least it's better than the voices! ;o)

Mum's socks are very close. Since taking the picture below, I'm almost at the toe decrease.



I finally finished the first of my Dad's socks. The circular needles really made the sock go fast. I just love the coloring of hand dyed yarns. You have a general idea of what it kind of maybe will look like, but it's always a surprise in the end.



While DH was outside raking yet MORE leaves in the yard yesterday afternoon, I decided to start DSis's finger less mitts.



These were stunningly fast to knit, and by today during lunch, I completely finished the first mitt.



And, to get everyone in the holiday mood, here's some snowy pictures out my front door this evening. It's our first real snow where even the roads are covered: