Embroidery is not my friend.

At long last, the Baby Bobbi Bears are done. It may have taken double-digit numbers of tries (and ripping out and cursing) to get them both done.

Reece's Bear:


Julie's bear:


Pattern: Baby Bobbi Bear by Bobbi Intveld (for Blue Sky Alpacas)
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton (except the purple detail which is Peaches & Creme)
Needles: Size 9 Clover DPNs
Started: Sometime in November (don't remember, and they were both different start dates)
Finished: December 16, 2007 (both)

To anyone considering using this yarn, be forewarned: it BREAKS with a vengeance. Worse than Noro Kureyon.

Where did the weekend go?

I feel like it was just Friday night. And yet now we are only 2 weeks from Christmas and I am not even close to halfway done with shopping. Eek!

Speaking of Friday night, that was our Ktog Christmas party. I took surprisingly few photos. We had a Thieving Secret Santa game...here is the pile o' gifts at the beginning.


Vanessa brought numbered tickets to determine the order of play...here she is getting ready to pick the ticket for the first person to select:


I know others took photos too, but that's really all I have.

Here is what I ended up with from the gift exchange:

A fun fabric drawstring bag...


Chocolate and yarn needles


More chocolate


and the Knitting Stitch Bible. I actually stole this gift rather than unwrapping one...it was a pretty popular one and was stolen a couple times, but I ended up with it :)

Vanessa also gave everyone a tape measure:


And Erica gave everyone an ornament filled with novelty yarn:


It was a very fun event. I was there till almost midnight...and then on the 3 mile drive home I pretty much ran out of gas...my car gives you a couple miles warning so I knew if I didn't get gas on the way home I wouldn't have enough to get anywhere else, even the gas station. So there I was at midnight by myself in the 9 degree weather, filling up my car. Bah. Oh well, now it is full for the week.

Here's a little Christmas knitting for you:


Ribbed scarf for my dad


Booga bag for stepmom


Partial Airy Scarf....not sure yet who this is going to, it sort of depends on how long this takes. I want to do at least 3 of them, but one has to ship so if only one is done by next weekend that's the one that is being shipped.

I also finished #1 of the Embossed Leaves Socks:

The color is way too dark but you get the idea. I am terrified I am going to run out of yarn for the second sock, and I got this from Etsy so buying more is not possible. Please keep your fingers crossed for me - I love this sock!!!

Weak.

Since the bears are done, I decided to do some Airy Scarves as Christmas gifts. I ran out to the LYS to get some Kidsilk Haze today (I took a vacation day today...ended up doing a fair amount of work too but that's another story altogether):




That second one is dark purple, but the photo didn't come out too well. This should get me 4 scarves, and only one of them will have to ship so I'll get started on that one right away. I used wooden needles for the fingering weight one, this time I am using Addis because the stickiness of the wooden needles drove me NUTS. I can only imagine it with the Kidsilk Haze.

I was supposed to just grab the Kidsilk and go, but this caught my eye on the way to the register:

Dream in Color Smooshy! And look at those colors :) I am weak.

I did finish the first Airy Scarf:

I didn't bother blocking it (as you can tell) because when I finished it, it was barely long enough to go around my neck, let alone tie it. (No, I didn't swatch. Nor did I measure before I did the end pattern on the second end. Shut up.)

I did, however find a home for it:

Keeping busy

Between work, knitting, and Ravelry, I've not had much time for blogging.

The last bear is done:

Now that this is done I think it is pretty much on par with the brown one. There are some things I like better about each, but overall they are both pretty good. Now I just have to get the faces embroidered.

I also started an Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts:

This is going fast. I think I am going to get some more yarn and do more of these. This is supposed to be done in laceweight but I think it also looks nice in this fingering weight (Louisa Harding Kimono Angora).

I also had some stash enhancement on Wednesday...my STR Raven order came:

You can barely see the colors but it is primarily black with blue and purple. I can't wait to knit it up.

Catching up...

I am way way behind in my blog posting...primarily due to Christmas knitting. :/

So here is the practice bear...

I guess he could have used a bit more stuffing...though he seemed overstuffed at first. This is my first stuffed knit item, so I guess I am learning there. I got the nose on but am having horrific trouble embroidering the eyes (you can see a bunch of fuzz from my prior attempts). I am hoping someone at Ktog will be able to help me next week.

Here is Reece's bear minus face embroidery:

I actually don't like the duplicate stitch effect around the neck...so I don't think I'll do that for the next one. This one definitely turned out better though, aside from my forgetting how to do m1 increases without making holes....it's not so bad that I feel the need to rip it out though.

And my pet project - this is what I keep bargaining with myself on....if I do some work on the bears, I can do some work on these....

This pic was taken a few days ago. I'm now past the heel and just finished the gusset decreases. I love love LOVE this pattern. Very easy (though not so mindless I can read a magazine while knitting), really fun, and just LOOK how beautiful it is!

Close-up:


This sock is really all I want to do. I'm going to the symphony tonight, so this will be coming along with me for the car ride (the bear just isn't so good for car knitting).

Knit, Knit, Knit...

This time, the reason I haven't been posting is that I've been KNITTING!!! (See, the Grasshopper socks are done!)

For the last few days I have had my head down working on Christmas knitting. Here is my progress on the teddy bear for my nephew Reece:

This knits up nice and fast. I'm glad I did a practice one though - I found it much easier to continue on from the body and do the head right away, rather than putting the stitches on holders, doing the legs, and coming back to the head. I'm ready to start the legs now.

And I'm getting ready to start another pair of socks (I may have cast on already by the time you read this):


One of the yarn stores in Ohio a couple weeks ago got me obsessed with finding an autumn-y orange/brown yarn to do some socks in. They had a great display, but unfortunately I couldn't find a combination of color, texture, and gauge I was looking for. This is the whole package, found on Etsy. Hopefully I'll like knitting with it. The plan is for the Embossed Leaves socks.

I also signed up for Netflix today. We've been talking about watching more movies, and I find movie-watching time to be prime knitting time (especially for stuff like that bear). I'm going through and rating things and adding stuff to my queue. So far my queue seems to be full of documentaries and foreign films.

Knee High to a Grasshopper!

Finally, finally, FINALLY done!!!



Pattern: Knee High to a Grasshopper (April '07 Rockin' Sock Club Pattern)
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silkie in "Walking on the Wild Tide" colorway
Needles: Size 3 (3.00 mm) Knitpicks circulars
Started: June 6, 2007
Finished: November 8, 2007

(just remember these were hibernating for quite awhile, because I didn't want to do these the same time as Bayerische.)

I love the yarn. The "mesh" pattern is very difficult, basically it's a lot of yo, p2tog. There are a few holes I need to patch up because there are a few spots where I purled together two yo's (oops). I think I only did it once on the second sock.

I do love the socks, but I'm not anticipating using this pattern again.

All kinds of fun

I took the last few days off to go to Ohio and help my mom out for a bit (she had surgery so she only has the use of one hand right now). Among my duties:

• chauffeuring (lots and lots)
• cooking for us to eat immediately, as well as cooking things and freezing them for her to eat later
• chopping/shredding/grating to make cooking easier with one hand after I leave
  
• trash collecting around the house
• hair washing
• moving large items
• etc.

It seemed to be helpful for her...though the time went by really fast!

Here's one thing we saw on our foray to the local Whole Foods:

I have never seen ostrich eggs in the store before. It was tempting, but we had no clue what we'd do with them, so we moved along.

I also went to visit my dad for a few hours. My 13-year-old stepsister was painting a window for Halloween at the local Caribou Coffee, so we hung out there for a while....I got some knitting done (which subsequently was ripped out...sigh). The finished window:

Pretty impressive, eh? A ghost dressed up as a pumpkin and a pumpkin dressed up as a ghost. :)

I also snapped a photo of this hanging from a tree on my dad's street:

It's very blurry because I had to crop the heck out of it in order to be able to see what the subject of the photo is. A mini-pumpkin with a jack-o-lantern face and bat wings. I thought this was so cute.

I do need to mention that I went to 3 yarn stores in Ohio and didn't buy anything. Behold my awesome willpower.

And I did actually get some progress made on my long-suffering Grasshopper socks:

Pretty good progress, especially considering I had to rip and re-do the heel 4 times. I'm about 8 rows from starting the cuff. And then I have a whole other one of these to do. :( I love the result but am hating the knitting - much like Bayerische. But I have to get through the STR club socks because I signed up for next year :) Hopefully that wasn't a bad idea, but I did love the first installment and the others look like they'll be OK to knit too.

Some yarn for Christmas knitting:


Blue Sky Organic Undyed Cotton in Nut


Blue Sky Organic Undyed Cotton in Bone

And I leave you with the best yarn score of all...the latest installment of the STR club:

Part of the Raven series - Lenore. This photo is a little dark, but the yarn is black with red and purple in it. I LOVE it. And the pattern, but I didn't take a photo of the pattern.

Anastasia

Finally got these done!



Pattern: Anastasia by Mintyfresh
Yarn: Brooklyn Handspun Superwash Sock in "Purple Rain" colorway
Needles: Size 1 DPN
Started: Sept. 2, 2007
Finished: Oct. 28, 2007

Getting up to date

I'm almost there!

So, a little over a week ago I went to The Fold with some of the posse ;)

I so did not need anything...but do you think I could come home empty handed? It was actually the first time I'd been there, and it was much bigger than I expected.


This is BMFA "Geisha" in the Pucks Mischief colorway. Geisha is a mostly mohair laceweight. I keep buying laceweight but haven't done any true lace knitting yet...but it will happen!


I need more purple sock yarn like I need a hole in the head, but here it is. Mountain Colors Twizzle in Deep Grape.

And here is the last-photographed progress on the bear:

It is actually stuffed and has arms now. All that is really left is to knit and attach the ears (I knit one last night but I don't like it so am going to start over), and to embroider the face.

However: see that interesting little section around the shoulder area? My flat stockinette has always looked like that, and I thought it was because I was purling tighter than I was knitting. Come to find out (after showing to Kelly and Melissa for advice) that I have been twisting my purl stitches this whole time I have been knitting. I decided not to go back and fix it, but I am doing it the right way now :) It feels very strange but I know it's right because it looks right. I will say that I went back and looked at my copy of Stitch n Bitch (where I learned from) and the illustration shows EXACTLY the way I was doing it before. So I blame it on Debbie Stoller.