MY Blog

that I just about fell off the face of the earth.  Close, but not really.  Just busy.  And I keep adding to the busy-ness by setting super realistic goals for myself.  Like, for example, making all my Christmas gifts this year (’cuz it’s the year of “make” in my family).  That’s 12 I had thought I would be knitting for, but then I got a different/better idea for the adults, and that involves sewing.  So, instead, I’m knitting for four kiddos, plus Things 1-3.  Not bad.  Not good, but not bad either.  I’m done with hats for two of the cousins:

The blue hat is foliage done in Malabrigo’s worsted in surf blue.  I used the stitch count for the chunky to come up with a smaller toddler-size hat.  And I did 2 1/2 repeats after the increases.   I heart foliage.  Truly a great pattern, easy to work up, and in a hand-dyed or hand-painted, it comes out so awesome. The slipped stitches hat was from a kit I picked up at Stitches in Oct.  Very soft merino from a Michigan farm.

the piggy purse for one more:

and I’m finishing up (finally) the morehouse classybaby blanket that I started, oh, 18 months ago or so.

Thrown into the mix is my goal to knit Things 1-3 their own Christmas stockings.  I know, I know, it’s like the cobbler’s kids going barefoot. But in my defense, my kids do have hand-made stockings, just quilted.  Actually, I did knit Sam a Christmas stocking for his 2nd Christmas (he was born on his first), but it just keep stretching and stretching, I thought that a quilted stocking would better hold its shape and also make stuffing it less worrisome.  The problem was that it didn’t have any give AT ALL, so fitting anything into it started to become an issue.  Thus the handknit stockings.  But I’m a bit fussy about my projects, and after seeing Risa’s great colorwork, I had a hankering to do some fair isle.  Which lead me to this:

This is Sam’s  (it’s not blocked), and per aforementioned Risa’s instructions, I immediately cast on for the 2nd.  Too bad this lady’s got 3 feet things. All in all, the stocking took about four nights of knitting.  Two for the top, one for the heel, and one for the foot/toe.  Tonight my goal is to get to the heel on Thing 2’s stocking, the heel on Sat. night and the foot/toe on Sunday.  Leaving a bit more than 3 weeks to finish up Thing 3’s.  Which, knowing me, will get finished on 12/24.   I always peter out like that.

FYI, the stocking is from Judy’s Colorworks of Farmington, Maine.  We got her kits in the store–she’s just fab at putting together great colors and fun fair isle.  Size 4 16″ needles.  I like this pattern, and I don’t think it will get that saggy because of the fair isle (as opposed to the intarsia santa I had knit better).  The wool she supplies in the kit is a great cushy dk, kinda scratchy, but I like that for the structure.

In non-knitting news, we had a glitch (otherwise known as DH) thrown into our usual Thanksgiving plans, so we were home this year, instead of CT.  I was happy to not have to battle 1-95 traffic, but in all honesty, I’m a bit dependent on my mother’s excellent cooking.  Anyway, since we were going to be here and not on 1-95 on Wed night, I took the kids to see the annual inflating of the balloons.  Ina was smart and went during the day.  I was not so smart and ended up herding Things 1-3, grandma Sato and later, DH (yes, we were actually able to meet up amidst the huge crowd) through 1 million people.

This was the line.

We finally did get there:

That’s Hello Kitty Supercute behind us.  I heart Hello Kitty.  I also heart that my closest friend is named Kitty, and just being able to say to her “hello, Kitty” makes me smile.

Paige