burp

Gladys and I are participating in Shawl Wars on Ravelry. Once you receive your death shawl, you are required to post an obituary with at least one picture of the shawl. I had the good fortune to receive a Dover Castle shawl (knit by djduckee) and it was designed by Judy Marples. Lucky me, she's a local. So I contacted her to see if she would help me with my obit pic and she said yes. What did people think of us as they were driving past this:


Clearly, we were slightly insane. But it was so much fun! Judy was a good sport and let me do pretty much anything I wanted. BTW, she brought the knitting-needle-through-the-head prop. She wore it last Halloween.

Both our families came into town for Thanksgiving. My MIL is here for an extended visit and my sis, BIL, nieces, and nephew dogs also dropped by. I missed Thanksgiving with the in-laws because I was babysitting the nieces while my sis & BIL went to her 20 year high school reunion. While they were out, I taught my nieces how to knit. The oldest wasn't really interested but she wanted to try because I was doing it. The youngest really surprised me. I showed her how to hold the needles (she calls them sticks) and wrap the yarn (she calls it string). It only took a few tries for her to accurately execute a knit stitch. When I escorted them to bed, my niece made me promise to knit with her the next day.

When I showed up Sunday morning, my niece immediately pestered me to get out the knitting. She was impatient to get started. She mostly remembered what she needed to do and only needed a few minor corrections. She knit during every spare moment. I was very impressed. I managed to lure her away from the needles when I promised to take her yarn shopping so that she could pick something out to make a scarf. After supper, we knit some more. My sister took a video of us. It's pretty cute.


This is what she made. There are a few "holes" which she told me that she did on purpose. One time, she knit the stitch with the tail instead of the working yarn. Otherwise, it's not too bad for her first piece. I have to work on her tension. She really holds the yarn tightly and you can hear the acrylic squeaking on the needles. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

The boys were downstairs doing this:


Can you spot the two Xboxs? The intense concentration is caused by playing Halo Reach on the Legendary setting.

My nieces loved their Hello Kitty Halloween trick-or-treat bags. I am their favourite Auntie. My sister would point out that I'm their only Auntie.

My sister loves her new fingerless mitts.


Pattern: Fetching by Cheryl Niamath
Yarn: Punta Yarns merisoft Hand Painted Aran; 1 skein (197 yds; 100g) in col HP52
Needles: 4mm dpns
Notes: My sister's hands are tiny! She doesn't even stretch out the ribbing. The cables don't even hug her skinny wrists. If I were to make this again for her, I would leave out one whole pattern repeat (5 sts) to make it fit better.

Dad cooked way too much food (as usual) so I expect to be eating leftovers for many days. And poor hubby has the sniffoos so I should go make him some tea or something. He's shuffling around in his snuggie. Poor baby.