happy hands

So.Much.Food! My little quilting group held our annual Christmas luncheon yesterday. I am so glad that I wore loose pants. There was a ton of food. We actually ran out of table space and I had to serve the soup from the kitchen. I was so full that I didn't eat supper and had a snack around 9:30pm consisting of a Bakewell tart that was leftover from the party. I brought home cabbage rolls and baked beans, too. Hubby ate all the cabbage rolls (the piggy) and some of the leftover soup. I'm going to tackle the baked beans today.

We also unwrapped our presents to each other which means that I can unveil what I've been working on.


Pattern: Funky Chunky Mitts by Lindsey Williard (Ravelry download)
Yarn: Gedifra Volata Tweed; one skein (50g; 110 yds) per pair
Needles: 5.5mm dpns
Notes: I started knitting in June but ended knitting 9 pairs in the last month. Heh - so much for getting a head start. I am so glad this project is done!

Now that I'm feeling better (thanks for all the get well wishes), baking has begun. It didn't start smoothly. The night before the first batch, I came home and hubby tells me that the oven is broken. He tried heating up a shepherd's pie and it took forever. A quick check of the oven proved that the bottom element wasn't turning on. ACK! Our appliance book (the best $40 we've ever spent) said to check the electrical connections but of course, I loaned my DMM to my Dad and if hubby had called, I would've brought it home with me. Anyways, we assumed that the element was broken and not any of the electrical innards. Hubby ran off to the parts store first thing the next morning and the oven is working again. Yay! The new element gets really hot and we managed to slightly scorch the first batch of cookies. So the rack has been raised and hopefully, things are under control now. We baked 8 doz chocolate cranberry cookies yesterday night and we're baking chocolate meltie cookies today. We're making snickerdoodles tomorrow. I'll be making cookie deliveries all next week.

And just before bed, I managed to kitchener the toe on my Christmas socks.


Pattern: my usual 60 st top down with short row heel; changed colours every 5 rows
Yarn: Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Foot Loose; 1 sk green and 1 sk multi
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: Pair number 56! I was going to make these for my sister but I'm keeping them for myself. I love manually striped socks because I get to pick which colours to stripe.

This'll be my last post before the 25th so I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Ricky and Phoebe would like to add "Meowy Catmas":

sicko

That's me in a nutshell for the last 4 days (and counting). I've caught some kind of really nasty bug. Everything hurt so badly that I couldn't even hold up a paperback book while lying in bed. All I could do was moan quietly. Phoebe took pity on me and dragged her furry self off her heated bed to keep me company. Eating has not been possible and it's rough staying adequately hydrated. I'm guzzling flat ginger ale and eating plain white bread. I'm missing out on a cinnamon bun Christmas party today. Pooh!

Not a lot of anything happening. No knitting, cleaning, baking, wrapping, etc. I am soooo behind. I need a magic wand (or an army of elves) to wave at all my Christmas cards otherwise, they'll arrive after Christmas.

Before I got sick, I finally sewed the buttons on L's Christmas present.


Pattern: my own; a combo of Tasia's cardigan and the seamless yoke from "The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns"
Yarn: Nashua Superwash in 3 different colours (dk blue, light blue, yellow) and Dream in Color Classy in Go Go Grassy. I used 2 skeins of dk blue and just small amounts of the other colours.
Needle: 4.5mm for the body and 4.0mm for the button band
Notes: The cardi is supposed to fit a 1-2yo. The recipient is 18mos so I hope it fits ok.


I matched the stripes on the hem and cuffs but I went wild in the yoke. Switching colours whenever I felt like it. There were a bajillion ends to weave in but it's worth it. The pencil buttons came from a friend. She had them in her button stash. I used the DiC Classy because it's the leftover yarn from L's Dad's fingerless mitts (also a Christmas gift). Father and son will match. Awwwww!

December is sneaky

I'm sitting here updating my day planner and I'm shocked to discover that it's already December. November flew on by and I barely acknowledged it. Is it possible to rewind and play back last month?

Since it's Dec, deadlines are looming and I'm madly scrambling around. Hubby got the outdoor lights up last weekend. The tree is still in the box waiting for me to move living room furniture around to make room for it. We'll get it up this weekend even if it kills me. Today is wrap and mail all international parcels which should've gone out last week. And instead of knitting Christmas prezzies, I've been working on these:


This pooling scarf is going veeeeery slowly. It seems that I'm ripping out half of the stitches I make to get the colours to line up properly. Ugh! But it is looking very nice and worth the effort. Next time, I will choose yarn that is dyed more consistently across the skein.


And this is a new project that I cast on a few days ago when I threw down the pooling scarf in disgust. It's plain ole linen stitch. I wound a skein of dark purple and collected all my sock yarn scraps. I work 2 rows of linen stitch in purple and then I grab a contrasting yarn from the bag and work 2 more rows. I keep switching colours every 2 rows and voila. Pretty scarf.

Off to find empty boxes, packing tape, and look for my stash of Christmas cards. Only 22 days til Christmas...