Post Holiday Wrap up December 27, 2009

I sure hope everyone had a great Christmas. Mine was eventful. We had a blizzard on Christmas Eve. My first official blizzard, pretty crazy stuff. I have seen snow before, but nothing like this!

Clearly we were not going anywhere on Christmas Eve. So I stopped packing and wrapping and broke out the hot coco. Hubby spent a lot of the afternoon helping people who were getting stuck in our parking lot. We went to bed hopeful that the next day wouldn’t be too bad.

No such luck. We were snowed in! So we had our first Christmas Day in our apartment just the two of us.

It was a pretty good Christmas. I filled hubby’s stocking with gun care items. He filled mine with socks!

Hubby got a fun gift.

He got me the most wonderful gift!

Isn’t it beautiful?! The basket is perfect for yarn! And he filled it with one of every color of Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Cotton! I’m seeing some striped scarves and fingerless mittens in my future! Absolutely wonderful!

After we finished up with the gifts, we decided to see if we could get out of the parking lot. All I have to say is thank goodness for hubby’s Subaru Baja! The four-wheel drive saved us! Since we were able to get out we drove over to his aunt and uncle’s house for Christmas lunch. They were kind enough to invite us to come over since we were all stranded in the same town. We also discovered that the roads were mildly drivable. After lunch we finished packing, loaded up and headed for Tulsa!

Now that was a long drive! We made it though. I’m glad that we were able to see our families this weekend. Even though the blizzard disrupted Christmas plans, in the end things worked out and we were able to spend time with our families. Now we are back home resting up for work tomorrow.

In knitting news, I knitted up my first pair of the French Press Slippers. Here’s my first attempt. They came out a little wonky on the sides of the slippers, but I have a theory that is due to the way I sewed the pieces of the slippers together. I have plans to buy more wool and try them again. I’m thinking that the second pair is going to turn out better. All in all, not a bad turn out for my first felting project.

Before felting:

After felting:

I anticipate they will get better with each pair. I’m working my way up to doing a pair in Noro yarn. But I want to have the felting process down before I use Noro since Noro is not exactly cheap.

Stay tuned for a breakdown of my Christmas loot!

Projects Update December 20, 2009

I thought I would give a little update on my current knitting projects.

Here’s the February Lady sweater. It’s a little hard to tell but I am on the lace portion of the sweater. In my adventurous spirit I elected to knit the lace portion of the sweater in a variegated purple yarn. So I am knitting with three skeins of yarn at the same time. Easier said than done. Hence my lack of progress. I figure I will get back to it after the holidays.

The Chill Chaser Scarf I’m knitting for Hubby is growing. Slowly but surely it is growing.

The leg warmers are on hold while I satisfy my sock knitting desire.

Speaking of sock knitting. I am working on the heel flap of my Angee sock. I’m very excited about this. I’m getting close completing this sock. Then all I have to do is make a second one! I think the pattern is coming in nicely.

Bonus: I found another scarf in progress. Lots of cables, real pretty yarn. I’ll have to pick this one back up. I hope it looks as soft in the picture as it feels in person!

That’s about all I have in knitting news. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is this Friday! Where did the time go? I did some gift wrapping over the weekend, but I still have a lot left to do and about a week to do it in. I would say that I can’t wait for Christmas to get here to spend time with family, but I’m sure it is going to sneak up on me and attack me out of nowhere. I have a feeling this will significantly cut into my knitting time.

The joy of a knitting order! December 16, 2009

This has been an exciting week thus far. I received both my Knitpicks order and my addi turbo circular needles! I cannot describe the excitement that these two orders have brought.

First my Knitpicks order! After I knitted up that first sock a couple weeks ago, I decided to order some sock yarn and appropriate size circular needles and another sock book. It is time that I knit up socks!

The book I ordered is Sock Innovation by Cookie A. I have been a long time admirer of Cookie A’s designs on Ravelry. The designs she comes up with just amaze me. To be able to dream up a design concept and then make it a reality on a pair of socks is such an amazing talent .

The yarn I ordered, oh the yarn! The yarn is so much better in person. I love browsing the yarn on Knitpicks.com, but the yarn colors are so much brighter and vibrant in person. Which just about always surprises me because the photography folks at Knitpicks do a wonderful job with the product pictures.

I now am the proud owner of two skeins of Jade Gloss Sock Yarn, one skein of Make Believe Stroll Hand-painted Sock Yarn, and one ball of Russet Essential Tweed Sock Yarn. Such pretty yarns!

I also ordered three sets of 40 inch circular needles in sizes 1, 2, and 3 for magic loop sock knitting.

On to my second order. December 29th will be my 4th Anniversary. My wonderful husband wanted to do something nice for me and get me something that I would use a lot with my knitting. He asked what tools I needed or could use with my knitting. The end result is this:

4 sets of 47 inch addi turbo circular needles in sizes 0, 4, 6, and 7. This wonderful website addineedleshop.com had a create your own set. You ordered the case and selected a minimum of 3 circular needles and you received a 10% discount off the regular needle price. I was super excited to find this.

The case is wonderful!

In actual knitting news, I’m still working on the Chill Chaser Scarf for hubby. I have not really made any progress on the leg warmers. I did however cast on for a sock from the Sock Innovation book, using the Jade Gloss and size 1 needles.

Unfortunately, I had to frog what I had done (cuff and two repeats of the leg chart) because it was too small. I’m contemplating whether or not to go up one or two needle sizes. I think I am going to have to starting going up at least one needle size just as a rule, especially with my sock knitting. I’m such a tight knitter.

On the bright side, I am going to be a pro with the magic loop by the time I finish these socks!

Wiped Out December 13, 2009

This weekend wiped me out! Here it is 9 pm on Sunday and I’m wondering where the weekend went. It was so short. I was able to get a lot done though. On Saturday I woke up somewhat mildly early. Okay, technically I did wake up around 9 am, which is early-ish for a Saturday, but I didn’t roll out of the bed until around 9:40-ish. I finally left the house around 10:20 to do my holiday shopping. I made it to Barnes and Noble and the Mall Saturday morning. The mall was packed! The experience reminded me of why I avoid the mall at peak shopping hours. I had planned to get there early to avoid most of the crowd, but that didn’t work out for me. In any case, I did get about 99% of our holiday shopping completed. So it was a successful day. Needless to say once I got home from the mall I refused to leave the house again for the rest of the day. Today I did venture out of the house for about an hour to run some errands.

Also this weekend I finished knitting a hat and another dishcloth. I absolutely love the way this yarn knits up with the stripes. I am definitely going to have to pick up a couple more skeins of this yarn to make leg warmers and possibly some mittens.

I’ve been working on the Chill Chaser Scarf a lot today. I’m wanting to get as many things off my needles as I can. I’m wanting to clear some space off my knitting area so I can focus on the sweater I am knitting. Things get a little interesting with the sweater since I am using 3 balls of yarn at the same time. Tangles happen all the time, it’s very annoying.

Something else I did this weekend, I finished the book I was reading. Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports. That James Patterson has an imagination on him. These Maximum Ride books are jam-packed full of twists and turns and suspense. This is such a good series. The last two books I kept thinking that after I finish it I will pick back up on the Harry Potter series; but then I get to the end of the book and I just HAVE to read the next one. So I’ve decided to go ahead and finish the Maximum Ride series and then pick back up with book 5 of the Harry Potter series.

So I went ahead and started reading the 4th Maximum Ride book, The Final Warning. I’m almost half way through the book. I’m thinking I might actually get this book read before the end of the year. It’s not a very thick book. The first three books were grouped together as The Fugitives and then there is a group called The Protectors. The Final Warning is book one of the Protectors. I went ahead and picked up the 5th book today too, since this one won’t take long to read.

The weather this weekend was great! I didn’t need a coat all weekend. I’m worried that we are going to pay tomorrow morning for all the nice weather this weekend. At any rate it’s time for bed.

Boy is it cold outside!!! December 9, 2009

We got off to a really cold start this morning. The temp gage on the car this morning said 16 degrees!! That is way too cold to be getting up and out at 7 AM. I am really glad that I bought that hat! It has been used the last two days and has worked wonderfully!

Our Christmas shopping is well under way. I’ll be spending the better part of Saturday at the mall trying to finish up the shopping. My goal is to get the rest of our holiday shopping done so I can start thinking about wrapping. I like to get my holiday shopping done somewhat early in December so I don’t have to worry about it the closer we get to Christmas.

In knitting news, I finished the sock I was knitting. I must say that sock knitting is not as hard as I had thought. The instructions in the 2-at-a-time Socks are very well written and easy to follow. The pictures of the steps also helps a great deal. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to learn how to knit socks, or if you want to learn the magic loop method.

Now that I have the magic loop method down, I think I like sock knitting. Given these two revelations, I placed a knitpicks order. Sock yarn, 40 inch circular needles, and Cookie A’s book Sock Innovation are in the mail! While I’m waiting for my order, I decided to cast on for some leg warmers using the magic loop.

I’m not very far along on the leg warmers, I had to rip and start over again because I decided to improvise my own pattern using cables and had to add additional stitches. I tend to make things smaller the first go round. I think I have a good number of stitches and am ready to proceed with them. The cables look like little snakes slithering down until you put them on, and then the cables show up. Not too bad for my first pair.

The appearance won’t matter too much, because I’ll more than likely be wearing them under my work pants for the most part. I’ve been wearing my store-bought pair everyday this week under my work pants, and I must say that they make a world of a difference! Warm is good!

Here’s to the small winter accessories that help keep us warm!

Cold Weather is Here! December 5, 2009

This past week was mighty chilly. I do believe winter is officially here. Time to break out the scarves, hats, and gloves. Speaking of hats, check out the awesome hat I picked up today. My ears are going to stay so warm!

I may feel a little nerdy wearing my new hat, but I am going to be a warm nerd!

In knitting news; I cast on another ribbed hat. Every time I finish one of these ribbed hats I always say that I am never going to knit that pattern again, and I always cast on another one. It’s a super easy pattern to knit.

I’m also knitting my first sock using the magic loop method. I must say that I am really liking the magic loop as opposed to double-pointed needles for the sock knitting. Magic loop turned out to be much easier to use than I thought it would be. I’m almost done with the tutorial sock from the book “2 at a time Socks”. Now I am only doing one sock instead of two, but this book is a pretty good instruction for utilizing the magic loop. I like instruction books that have a lot of pictures.

I think my sock is turning out real well. I have already completed the heel and am on the foot portion of the sock.

I believe that I am going to try some sock knitting. I have been listening to the Knitpicks podcast and Kelley keeps talking about how much she enjoys sock knitting because of the portability of a sock project. A lot of knitters talk about how addictive knitting socks can be, and now I want to know what the fuss is all about. I’m ordering another sock book, two different sizes of 40 inch cabled needles, and a couple different sock yarns to start my sock knitting. I’m going to see if knitting the socks is actually addictive, and if the hand knitted socks are better than store-bought socks. I’m already inclined to think that the hand knitted are a little better because of how the heel flap is knitted.

Other than knitting not much else is going on. We’ve been working out our Christmas shopping and preparing the apartment to put up the Christmas tree. There is so much to do for Christmas, and not may weeks left to do it. It really does seem like we just had Christmas not too long ago. The years are starting to pass by a lot quicker. The age-old question still remains…..where does the time go?.