Happy Almost New Year… December 31, 2007

I figured if I was going to get one last post in this year, I’d have to hurry. 

Christmas was a madhouse. Imagine, a household with 2 people, 2 cats, and one dog exploding into a house full of 8 people, 2 cats, and 3 dogs. And one of those was my mother (as well as being the mother of 4 of the other visitors). I finished the stockings, just barely, with the help of my husband (who knit about 2″ on the top of the leg and the lip of one sock) and my sister-in-law (who knit 2″ on one sock, then its lip, and about 8 purl rounds on the other). No photos, as the stockings have all been appropriated. 

We had fun, don’t let me fool you. We played on the wii until our arms fell off. We visited the Celestial Seasonings factory, and did the tour. We all got and gave cool gifts (I gave some handspun alpaca to my alpaca-obsessed sister-in-law), and had a good time. It was just stressful. Mostly because mom… well… sigh. To start with, she wasn’t pleased with our tree once we put all of our ornaments on. We ended up going to JoAnn, where she bought some sort of gold and green and red garland, some plastic balls, and some twisty thingies to add to the tree. The twisty things will get packed. The garland and cheap plastic ornaments got tossed. (We had about 4 boxes of glass ornaments on the tree, btw. And our normal assortment of weird things, and a garland, and lights. It wasn’t bare. It was fine.) 

To continue the mom weirdness, she complained about being ‘nauseous’ and ‘not feeling well.’ I’m 99% sure this is because she wasn’t drinking enough water. I live at an altitude of 6700 feet. She lives pretty much at sea level, being less than 3 miles from the sea. I gave everyone a refillable water bottle, but she never touched hers. Because, I quote, “flat water makes me nauseous.” Yeah, my head almost exploded, and I started thinking about the Louis Black bit about “if it wasn’t for my horse…” She woke me up the day after she got in at 8am, asking for breakfast, and then proceeded not to eat any of it. In fact, she didn’t eat anything I made until Christmas Day, when I made a pot roast. We *did* have Chick-Fil-A once or twice while she was here, as we’re from the South, and there are none in Maine, where she lives, or NYC where my brother and his wife live.

On the knitting front with mom, I taught mom how to cable (and wrote her a simple pattern with two C4F’s) and how to kfb. Yes, I taught mom how to increase. She already knew k2tog, and I got her started on a garter-stitch diagonal scarf thingy. I wrote her a pattern out for that one, too, on the back of some envelope or another. We went on a mini-crawl and visited the Llama store, Green Valley, and Needleworks. We stopped off on the way back from old Colorado City at Sparrow Hawk, the kitchen store downtown, and it was awesome. This was also the trip we made to JoAnn, and I want to say we stopped off somewhere else as well, but I can’t remember. It’s all still a blur.

It was a lot of fun, but I’m looking forward to next year when it will be me, Ben, the dog, and the cats. And maybe some friends if we’re up to it. No flying, no schedules, no dog fights (yelling, mostly, not actual fights with teeth and blood), no driving to the airport at 4am, etc.

On the fibery front, I entered a swap on Craftster to make Art Yarn, something which I don’t normally do. I received a box of treasures from my partner:

and it looked like this once I removed the gorgeous batts: 

Here it is on the bobbin — MJ, do you have a proper photo of it all skeined up and fluffy? It has big glass beads in it, curlicues of locks trapped in the plied yarn (which was plied around a core of crochet cotton in green), and coils, where I let the spun yarn ply loosely around the core of crochet cotton and then smushed it together.

 

It turned out awesome, but I didn’t know what I would ever knit with it. So I brought it to KnitGroup, and sold it to MJ, who had fallen in love with it at first sight. 😀

Because the idea of knitting more socks right now is thoroughly unappealing, I’ve started a 4″ square project. I’ve been knitting 4″ squares (corner to corner, in garter stitch) and crocheting them together. I don’t believe in making new years’ resolutions, as I think that people should set and work for goals all year round, so I’ve got nothing on my slate pertaining to that. I just wish everyone good health and good luck in the coming year. 🙂

Holiday Fun… December 14, 2007

So, next week at this time, my mom and 3 of my brothers will be in, and it will be utter pandemonium. My house will be full of people, dogs, and cats. 8 people, 3 dogs and 2 cats. Yes, the 2 cats and 1 of the dogs is ‘normal’. My brother and his wife are bringing their pups, as it’s cheaper than trying to board them. The good news? We’re almost done with shopping for everyone.

The bad news? I’m only half-done with stockings. I’ve knit 3 of them. Unfortunately, photobucket doesn’t like me right now, and only uploaded 2. But they give y ou the sense of the third. No, I’m not using typical Christmas Colors. Yes, it’s just a big sock. Yes, I *did* knit three at a time on one magic loop. I’m knitting the next three the same way.

I dyed up a shetland fleece the night before last. I separated the cleaned fleece into approximately 4 oz chunks and dyed brown, another brown, grey, black, teal, pink, two kinds of purple (one more blue than purple), dark blue, and red. (2 lbs, 91/2 oz of fleece all told.)
I think what I’m going to do with all of that fleece is spin a progression of color. Pick up all the, say, brown, card it, spin it fine, and then pick up the red, the pink, then the pinker purple, the bluer purple, the blue, the teal, the grey,  and the black. Spin until one bobbin is filled, go to the next, of course. I don’t have a bobbin that can hold 2 and a half pounds of fiber. Navajo ply to try to keep the colors separate and then… knit.

Knit what, I don’t know. I’m thinking a vest or a sweater. Maybe a simple top-down raglan with garter stitch edging. I’ve been dying to knit one for a while. Maybe something like the sweater in Spin to Knit, where she used handspun for the yoke and then a commercial yarn for the sleeves and the rest of the body. Hmm… something to think about *after* I knit the rest of the stockings.