Monkeys and Blankies

Ok so I’m about 2/3’s of the way through my mother’s sock monkey hat (from knitty.com). I’m generally not a fan of the, as I like to call it, fuzzy yarns. You know the ones. They all have that this extra fringe sticking out everywhere but this yarn isn’t quite as bad as some. Actually the pics make it look worse than it is and besides it really makes this hat look funny. Not quite as sock monkeyish as the original but funny none the less. I also grabbed some more yarn to get two more done for my aunts. One of theirs will have a blue top and pom pom the other a green. I know, I know, so not sock monkey but hey I didn’t want them all exactly alike and besides I think I lost the sock monkey look, as mentioned before, with the glittery, fuzzy yarn.

And again with the not so knitting news… Here’s part of the neighbor’s baby shower gift, all completed and ready to go. It’s 2 by 2 block in a checkered pattern, just like the last one I posted. I actually wanted to do a 3 by 3 (like a tic-tac-toe board) but I had the material cut for this so this is how it was done. It’s backed in a white flannel instead of the chenille that the other was done in. I like the chenille, ok I love the look of the chenille, but I really like how much thinner this blanket is. It has the same batting and such to it so I’m sure it’ll be just as warm it just isn’t as poofy as the other. I am definitely liking this one too.

So until next knit on knitters….

An update, just for the sake of updating...

Well I didn’t get too much done over the holidays in terms of knitting at least. In terms of Wii, I got a lot done. I beat Rayman’s Raving Rabbids but never even started Zelda. Yes I know I hear the gasps from anyone who happens to have ever played Nintendo in their lives. I don’t know I just haven’t felt in the mood to seriously concentrate on Zelda so I haven’t even picked it up. My sister did come over and get me started though, I mean while fell asleep.

So here’s where I am in terms of knitting, about 1/3 of the way through Liesel. See it right over there…. It's a quite hard to see the pattern, I didn't realize the green would be quite so dark oh well...

I'm still at the same point on my Lady E, so no pics of that. I’ve been recruited to make another sock monkey hat for my mom (have I already mentioned that, sorry if I have). I would really love to make one for each of my aunts as well. I can see them already, the three of them all walking around town in their matching hats.

Not quite knitting, but crafting…I am almost finished with a blanket for my soon to be youngest niece, due to arrive at the beginning of May. I just love the red polka dots. Its backed in off-white chenille. This is one of my favorite blankets I’ve made. I just have the two sides to stitch up real quick then it’ll be ready to go, well actually it will be ready to wait, for the shower that is. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll be starting one for my neighbor, who’s also having a little girl. I still have to get everything for that one though.

I didn't forget about you guys I promise...

Some of you may know what these are already. To those of you who don’t, they are pure heaven. They are Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses. You must immediately run out and buy yourself a bag and while you are at it buy another one for everyone else and hide your bag. Sams sells them in bigger bags so I actually recommend going there to buy them if you have one near you. They actually taste like those mints that come in a clear upright bag that are pastel colors with little white balls of pure goodness on the bottom.

I haven’t forgotten about you guys I’ve just been out of town for a while and running around with my mother the rest of the time. I swear anytime my family gets together our schedule is determined by food. As soon as we get up, hell before we even go to bed the night before it’s “Where are we going to eat breakfast?” Then as soon as it’s over we begin the “When’s lunch”, “Where are we going for lunch?” The of course starts the dinner questions. It’s like the whole time I was out of town the only thing we did was eat with a bit of driving in between. I haven't even considered stepping on a scale since I've gotten home.

I amazed everyone, while I was gone, with my Lady E. It really is a show stopper isn’t it? I took it foolishly thinking I would get some time to work on it. Well what with all that eating and all I of course didn’t even pick it up. Ok well once, but I think I only got a square done. Now that I’m home and slowing down a bit I’m ready to pick it back up and get this puppy finished. I should’ve had it done by now. I did however complete Knitty’s Sock Monkey Hat. My sister put in a request. She wanted to be unique when she hit the slopes in February. I don’t know how warm it will be but it's sure to get a few laughs. I couldn’t find a good tweedy looking yarn but this yarn with just a bit of fuzz and glitter I think works well. My mother, who by the way is peeking up from the bottom of the picture has since requested one also.

I also finished another pair of the Old World Booties like before. This time they were a tan and dark sage green color. They turned out well. I really just wanted to try out a different bind off.

Well I guess I can leave you with the latest shot of my Lady E, although I’m almost ashamed too since I haven’t made it as far as I should have. Sorry about the color it just didn't turn out right. I think I’m in the low low 20’s as far as tiers go. Good night everyone out there in bloggyland…

Turkey Day is over now on with the knitting...

Sorry about the delay folks. I've had family visiting so needless to say I've been very busy. My mother comes down a bit before Thanksgiving and leaves a bit after the first of the year. The good part about that is that she splits her time between my sister and I so when one of us is about to pull our hair out it's time for her to move on. Kidding Mom, it really is nice to have her come down and be able to stay for such a long time. She moved up North a few years ago so even though my sister and I both probably talk to her just about every day we don't get to see her that often. Anyway my mother flew in the Saturday before Thanksgiving and the shopping started that night (we had to go out in hunt of that illusive Nintendo Wii, which we actually somehow managed to get our hands on on Sunday morning at 10) and didn't stop until Tuesday night. Oh well actually it didn't stop stop, it just took a break til Friday so we could cook, eat and sleep. My sister came in on Wednesday night just in time for Turkey and of course the infamous Black Friday. Oh yes folks we are definately part of that crazy crowd that gets up at 3-4 in the morning to stand line after line in the dark and of course cold. All those who partake in this glorious adventure would agree though, it just doesn't feel like the holidays until you have gotten back home Friday evening bags of goodies in hand and shared you're victory stories and a few horror stories too with those who stayed snuggly warm in the bed until oh about 10, mainly our hubbies. Oh and is it just us but don't most of the gifts end up being for them, what's up with that. Hey to give the guys credit I did actually see quite a few men out there, it surprised me how many I saw, however not a one of them was my husband, he was one of those that stayed snuggly warm in bed until 10. So how was everyones' Thanksgiving, I hope you all had a good one? And how many of you hit the stores Friday morning and what bargins did you get? And for those of you who were smart and slept in, any good dreams ya got to share?

Well with all the chaos I haven't gotten much needle time in, now that everything has slowed down a bit I'm hoping to get going again. I am somehow up to the 20th tier on Lady E, no pics though. At first I was just so close to the end that I figured I'd just wait until she was completed to snap a few more photos. Now, however, it's taken me a bit longer than I thought, so part of me thinks I should show off what I have so far but the other part has asked for a new digi camera for Christmas and thinks that if I take pics of her now what am I going to have to show off when my new camera gets here. Realistically if this baby gets finished before Christmas there's no way I'm waiting that long to show her off, hell I'll have pics up within the hour of completion.

I ripped out all the purpley goodness that is the filing of Baby Tart. A few stitches slipped off the needles and well I couldn't figure out how to get them back on so I finally gave it up and decided to start over with it. I think I'm going to work on this one for a little bit and take just a small break from Lady E just so I don't get burnt out this close to the end, hey I'm just as surprised as all of you that I'm still trucking along on her.

And lastly I've convinced my aunt to try lace. I've ordered the yarn, which I'm hoping gets here today, and made her some stitch markers and a row counter. I figure I'll grab some lotion or hand cream/balm and stick in too. It's all just a little bribe to get her to knit this with me. We are going to do Liesel. I don't think it'll be too hard for her at all. She's finished a pillow with a basketweave stitch and she's made I think she said five pairs of those Weekend mitts that I posted about a while back. I sent her the pattern just a month or two back, I thought it'd be an easy quick project for her well apparently it was. She's giving them out as Christmas presents.

Tuesday's gone with the wind...

Well almost, technically there's still 3 and 1/2 hours left but close enough. Ok so another night without my hubby and I've been knitting away. My Lady E has been going very well. I'm actually impressed that I've gotten as far as I have without starting something new or giving it up yet. It's not hard really, its just that I have knitting ADD. Actually its not just limited to knitting it really covers all aspects of my life. I'm likin' working with the SWS. It feels really good. My husband and mother are both impressed with it. I've been trying to teach my hubby to knit but he's not having it. How great would that be though, I get tired of working on something and hand it to him. Somehow I don't think it would work out that perfectly even if he were willing to learn. Anyway back to Lady E I have just finished the 6th tier and am somewhere in my second skein. I switched to a new skein somewhere in the middle of the second one I was using so I really am not exactly sure how much I've used yet. So here she is. Notice the color difference from yesterday's pic. That's due to Sunday's frogging session I mentioned right after the pic. When I frogged it I changed skeins for some reason. And the weird thing is that even though they are the same color and even the same dye lot I kinda like Saturday's version, how picky is that. I do however like that Tuesday's version is up to tier 6 rather than Saturday's 1 or 2 (can't really remember which right now)

In case you cared here's the felted Old World booties. Aren't those bobbles cute? My sister really likes these. Well she really liked them prefelting she hasn't seen the postfelting pics yet. They are almost cute enough to make me want something to fill them. Just kidding Mom, not yet for this chick.

Monday Monday

So it’s Monday night and hubby is at work tonight. Leaves me plenty of knitting time in front of the TV. Although it’s Monday night and nothing really comes on on Mondays. I used to really like the whole wife swap and nanny shows but not so much anymore. I’m still a complete reality TV whore though. Project Runway and America’s Next Model are my two absolute faves. MTV’s Real World and those Real World/Road Rules competitions rank pretty high on my list as well. And what is up with those Real World people anyway. You know I thought that it was just supposed to be that they were on one show then goodbye, well then they came out with the competition so I thought well hey now they’ll stick around for one more show. No they have now made a career out of doing the competitions. But really, who am I to complain I’m completely addicted to them.

I saw one of my nieces’ scarves, or whatnot, this weekend. She hasn’t gotten too much further on it at all, but I’m surprised she’s still working on it at all. She brings down her basket and tells me she has a question about her knitting. Well she has a couple holes in it and wondered where they came from. I tried to explain that must have dropped a couple of stitches but I don’t think she got it. I guess I should probably try and figure out how to pick up dropped stitches and attempt to fix it but instead I just told her that it’s ok I’ll show her my first scarf and that will make her feel better about her’s.

So I finished my booties this weekend, actually I think I finished them Friday. They are all felted and everything. I haven’t gotten a picture of them all finished yet but here’s one of them prefelting. I’m pretty happy with them. I’m thinking I’m really going to have to look into other ways of binding off. Are there any out there that will still be kinda stretchy when done? That’s definitely what these needed. Truth be told I don’t even know if you could get a foot in, its so tight. Oh well they still look cute.

Then there's Lady E. I started her on Saturday and finished the first tier of triangles see... Then on Sunday I ripped her all out. Yep every bit of her, which wasn't too too much but it was still enough. Well off to knit...

Where were the Trick-or-Treaters?

So guess how many pumpkin bags I had left over last night? 2? No… 8? No…15? No… I had 20 left. 20, and I started out with 20 and still have 20 sitting on my table. We didn’t get one single trick-or-treater.

On the knitting front, I have one Old World Bootie finished. The sole is one color, mine is teal and the rest is another, mine a cream. Well the pattern says to switch the colors on the second. I can’t decide if I want a pair with one cream bootie with a teal sole and one teal bootie with a cream sole or if I want a pair with just two cream booties with teal soles. If I want? Ha I don’t have a child they won’t be for me. Actually if they were for me I would mind the different colors but I’m wondering what others would want. If they turn out good I think they’ll be going to my SIL that I mentioned before. I actually would have preferred teal booties with a cream sole but wasn’t paying any attention when I started them oh well.

You should be so proud of me too. I went to Hobby Lobby to get my nieces some scrapbooks and I didn’t even check out the yarn aisle. Don’t really know what I would’ve gotten but hey I still showed restraint. The scrapbooks, well some of them are 50% off right now. So if you are looking for a scrapbook that isn’t K and Company or Ek Success or a photo album run over and check it out. I got them a set each from Paper Studio. They are pretty cute and each have 12x12, 8x8, and 6x6 all for 20 bucks then with the 50% off I got them each a set for 10 dollars. I was proud of myself and I think they will like them.

And you have to check out the stitch markers I made this weekend. They aren’t as good as the pros but they are good enough for me. I’m in love the blue and teal colors, they remind me of the sea.