counting down

Everything at my house is about numbers these days - 7 days til Christmas (eek!), half a sock left to knit (double eek!!), 4 days til the in-laws show up (triple eek!!!), 23 hours til the pest guy comes to evict an unwanted rodent from our attic (I think it's a rat because of the gnawing wood noises that wake me up at 5am), 11 cowls delivered, 2 cats sleeping off chasing said rodent (Phoebe was chittering at it this morning as if she was trying to lure it downstairs), 4 dozen gingerbread cookies baked and ready to be frosted, umpteen presents left to wrap, gajillion Christmas cards that still need to be written & mailed, did I mention that there's only a week left til Christmas?!?!?!? I think I'm going to pass out - where are my smelling salts?

So instead of tackling those things, I'm here to blog (and take a breather from all the madness).

Here's a cowl that I knit as a sample for a class that I'll be teaching in January:


Pattern: my own; I have a PDF for it but I haven't uploaded it anywhere and I'm too lazy to type it up here on the blog so email me and I'll send it to you.
Yarn: Malabrigo Chunky; col Charrua; 1 skein (104 yds; 100g)
Needles: 6.5mm circs
Notes: If I were to knit this again, I'd use a slightly larger needle like a 7mm. It's plied so has a bit more body than Malabrigo Worsted. It's soft yarn but not as soft as Mal Worsted.

And this is my last gift cowl:


Pattern: Birthday Cowl by Nova Seals
Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton-Ease; col Maize; 1 skein (207 yds, 100g)
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: I can't find my notes but I think I cast on an extra repeat. I changed the skp to ssk.

All 11 cowls were gifted yesterday to my quilting friends (waves hi to QHuackers). I got lots of goodies to eat, two lovely embroidered towels, a little notebook, a small duck that glows when you squeeze it, and a small paper pieced quilt of a duckie.

After I finished the last cowl, I whipped up two hand towels and two dish cloths.

Pattern: my own; the wash cloths are plain garter; the towels are some sort of waffle stitch
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Culinary Cotton; col Summer Resort; 1 skein (340g; 608 yds)
Needles: 5mm noname bamboo
Notes: I love how the colours zig zag across.

I've got to finish knitting that last Christmas gift and then I'm knitting for myself for a few weeks. I desperately want to finish my Mondo Cable Cardi before winter's over.


Phoebe sez, "I'm mad at you, Mommy! You unplugged my heating pad!!"

making a list, checking it twice

Like Santa, I am busy making lists and checking things off.

1. Bake - so far 6 doz butter tarts, 8 doz chocolate crinkle cookies (hubby helped because my hands were too hot to roll the cookies), 6 doz cranberry choc chip cookies, and 8 doz pecan choc chip cookies (2 doz were immediately scarfed by my quilting group). We've got two more batches of cookies to make - gingerbread and either sugar cookies or shortbread.

2. Take pictures of Ricky snoozing in the sunshine:


3. Decorate house - done!!!

4. Knit cowls


Pattern: Swirling Petals Cowl by Casandra Roberts (Ravelry link only)
Yarn: 1 skein Mirasol Tupa (50g; 137 yds)
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Used thinner yarn so cast on 96 sts (added extra repeat)

My last (official) cowl is on the needles and pretty close to being finished. I should knit a few extra non-scratchy ones but I'm cowl'd out. I also knit a cable cowl for a class that I'm teaching but I forgot to take a picture of it so I'll blog about it later when I have pics and the pattern written up.

5. Wrap presents
So very very far behind on this one. Only 3 presents have been wrapped because I had to get them in the mail. The others are still languishing in a heap upstairs.

6. Christmas cards
Ditto. Don't even know which storage bin the cards are in.

7. Clean up the house
It looks like the Christmas hurricane has blown through and left a ton of wrapping paper, tape, gifts, and storage bins (now empty because everything is all over the house). So the house needs a major clean up not just because it's a maze to get to the laundry room but it turns out we'll likely be housing my parents-in-law for the holidays. MIL called earlier this week and Christmas is cancelled at their place. They live way in the Rockies and it seems that their water source has dried up and/or frozen solid. Since any precipitation is falling as snow, they essentially have to wait for spring thaw before running water is restored.

8. Install Phoebe's heating pad


She loves it and sleeps on it all the time. Thankfully, I got it just before this latest cold snap. She's definitely not as stiff. I would like to get her a cushy cat bed to go with the heater. Ricky hasn't discovered the heating pad so there haven't been any fights over who gets to sleep on it.


Ricky sez, "Who needs heat when I've got sunshine"

never doing that again aka I should know better

I've been busy busy trying to get a jump on Christmas shopping. I slogged through two major malls early this week and I'm done shopping. The only person that I haven't bought anything for is my Dad. He is so hard to buy for. I really don't know what to get him. It doesn't help that it's also his birthday next week.

I taught a cowl class last weekend and I brought some of my cowls to demonstrate the different patterns available. The students tried them on and some were deemed 'scratchy'. I'm not that sensitive to wool but now I'm realizing that some people are so I'm digging out my wool/silk and wool/cotton yarns to make some non-scratchy cowls.


Pattern: Ashford Cowl by Nicola Faull (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Cascade Sierra; col 16; 1 skein (191 yds; 100g)
Needle: 5mm Addis
Note: I didn't do the scalloped edging.


Pattern: Abstract Leaves Cowl by Deb Mulder (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Mirasol Cotonani; col 406 Tangerine; 1.6 skeins (90 yds per 50g skein)
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Used larger needles & thicker yarn. Cast on 90 sts.

Surprise, the sun came out briefly and there was a cat sitting by the window. Time for a cat'n cowl picture:


Phoebe let me know how much she hates cowls (click to embiggen):

another cowl or two

Curses! This winter weather stinks. I wanted to show you a coupla really cute duckie washcloths that I made as birthday presents but the pictures are horrible. So you'll just have to use your imagination.

::insert picture of cute washcloths here::

Pattern: Puddles & Quacking Up! by Elaine Fitzpatrick
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter cotton in Pale Yellow
Needles: 5mm Addis

I'm still cranking out the cowls.


Pattern: Windshield Loose Lacy Neckwarmer by Lisa Ashton
Yarn: Berroco Peruvia; 1 skein (100g; 174yds) in col 7143 (darker teal than the pic shows)
Needle: 5mm Addis
Notes: Used a heavier yarn and larger needles than the pattern calls for. Cast on 90 sts.


Pattern: Abstract Leaves Cowl by Deb Mulder (Ravelry link only)
Yarn: Mirasol Tupa; 1 skein (50g; 137 yds) in col 805
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Used a heavier yarn and larger needles than the pattern calls for. Cast on 90 sts. This yarn is very soft and shiny. Hard to knit with when my hands are dry so I have to keep a tube of hand lotion close by.

And while teaching a cowl (surprise, surprise) class this morning, I cast on another cowl to demo knitting in the round. The students were using 16" circs but I only had a 32" circ so I did the magic loop thing which confused some of them. So I'm trying to hide the extra cable in my hand and pretend that I'm knitting with a smaller circ. Not that easy to do when I'm holding my knitting above my head.

Only 33 knitting days til Christmas. Yikes!

it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a waterfall???

Sunday afternoon, I was driving past my house (after a quickie yarn acquisition trip) and there was water pouring out of our gutter and flowing down the side of the fireplace. Hmmm, not good. I parked and rushed inside to tell hubby to grab his rain gear and get his butt outside. We got the ladder out, etc. Sure enough, the gutters were clogged up. When he unclogged the last bit, water started rushing down the downspout and then the drain tile clogged up. So water was now geysering out the top of the downspout (and raining down on poor me along with the pouring rain). It was too wet to clear out the drain tile so after a quick trip to the hardware store, hubby wielded the hacksaw to insert a diversion at the base of the downspout. The second he cut into it, water started spraying me in the leg. At this point, I couldn't have been any wetter. We got it cut off, screwed the new bits in, and watched the diverted water flood part of my front lawn. Sigh... I ended up hacking off two feet so that the water dumps into my flower bed. BTW, my Gore-Tex coat failed to keep me dry.

This was the reason for my shopping trip:


My LYS got some new sock yarn: sweetgeorgia Tough Love Sock. Squeee! Isn't it gorgeous?

Let's get to some knitting. I have a FO to show you (I actually have more than one but the other two have to wait until they've been gifted).


Pattern: Candle Flame Cowl by Julia Allen (Ravelry link)
Yarn: Berroco Peruvia Colors; col 7210; 1 skein (174 yds; 100g)
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Made the unlined version. Very fast knit! Love, love this yarn. I need to block and rephotograph it.

And I had to immediately cast on for another one because I desperately need to catch up on my Christmas knitting.


The sun was nice enough to come out for 10 mins so that I could take these photographs. Of course, Ricky was nowhere to be found to model the cowls for me. Maybe he's getting smart...

moving on

The whole mitten fiasco is behind me. I'm not thinking or obsessing about it. I haven't frogged them yet because it's a two person job and I need hubby to help me. And I'm making him help me because it's his fault that his hands are freakishly large. Thanks to everyone for your words of sympathy & encouragement. The idea of sewing up the gusset is a good one but if I take away sts from the gusset, I have to add them to the palm otherwise, the mitten is too small. Curse his big hands!!!

And there was another near knitting tragedy. While rethinking hubby's mittens, I wanted to check something in the Anemoi charts and I couldn't find the PDF on my computer! I looked on both hard drives as well as the backups for the laptop and my old computer - nada. I was very close to having a heart attack. I finally plugged in the Shiny Blue Thing (my name for our external hard drive). I looked through all the backups and finally found it in the March backup of our previous computer. Bad hubby for not restoring all my files.

So moving on... Did you know that there's less than 45 knitting days til Christmas? Yep, it's officially crunch time. I am furiously working on Christmas projects. I finished a cowl yesterday and here's a craptastic picture (really dark yarn on a pouring rain day is really hard to photograph even with an Ott Lite):


Pattern: Turtle Tracks Cowl by Vicki Susan
Yarn: Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran; col 117; 1 skein plus 4 yds of a second skein
Needles: 5mm Addis
Notes: Major errors in the pattern - only rows 2 & 16 are correct. So very annoying. Lucky for me, I've knit this lace pattern before so all I had to do was pull out the other chart and use that as a reference. If you want to knit this, email me and I'll send you a list of corrections.

ETA: I stand corrected. Vicki has made changes to the original stitch pattern that results in a column of garter stitch rather than a column of rev. stockinette. My apologies for misrepresenting her pattern.

No Ricky cowl picture because there's no natural light left in this part of the world (til next April). I immediately cast on another cowl.


The yarn is Berroco Peruvia Colors. I am using the same yarn but the unpainted version for the Mondo Cable Cardi. There is quite a difference between the two even though they're both Peruvia. The dyed version is very similar to Malabrigo.

I will officially start Christmas shopping tomorrow when hubby and I head out to a huge Christmas market. It's all about high end handmade items. I haven't told hubby yet but a local dyer will be there selling yarn (and her handwoven shawls & capes). I'm pretty sure that I'll buy yarn from her.


Phoebe sez, "I want bigger cat furniture for Christmas"

OMG knitting!

This is a knitting blog so at some point, there should be pictures of knitting, eh? Don't be shocked.


Pattern: Clemence cowl by Katya Frankel
Yarn: Berroco Ultra Alpaca (col unknown as I don't have the ball band); 1 skein
Needles: 5mm Addi Turbo circs
Notes: I made the smaller version of the cowl because I expected that the alpaca would make the cowl grow. I was right. I really like the yarn. It has a fairly tight twist so the alpaca doesn't fuzz up too much. This is a sample for a class that I'll hopefully be teaching in Nov. so I didn't have Ricky model it.


My sooper seekrit project is also finished & blocked. These are the prize socks in Gladys' husband's Ride to Survive fundraiser raffle. The winner hasn't received these yet so here's a picture of the wrong side. Looks pretty good but the right side looks even better.

I have a new toy - a cordless/rechargeable Ott Lite. There was a huge stack of these at Costco. I bought one to take to the pool hall (my knitting group meets in a pool hall) because the lighting can be dicey. I can also take it camping and knit in the tent. I can see that this lamp will be really useful.

recovering

I am slowly recovering from Sock Summit. I'm going to bed relatively early and sleeping like the dead. I spent most of last week scrambling to get ready to teach my Sat. sock class. I think it went well except for the fact that it was an all day class and the students were completely worn out by the end. I'll have to think about changing the format a little.

After all the intense knitting at Sock Summit, I haven't really picked up my needles since I got home. I did read 4 out of the 5 books that I bought from Powell's. After I finished the last book, I was unpacking from Sock Summit and I came across the cowl that only had 3 rounds left to knit so I finished that.


Pattern: Clemence by Katya Frankel (Ravelry download only)
Yarn: Koigu Kersti Merino Crepe in col k3039; 2 skeins
Needles: 5mm Addi Turbo circs
Notes: The yarn is cable plied and a bit splitty but oh so soft!


Ricky sez, "Not another cowl! At least, it isn't a bib."

When you look at photographs of cowls, do you like to see them modeled (and scrunched up) or do you like them photographed flat? I have a styrofoam head but the neck is kinda short and so is my own. I don't know how much longer Ricky will put up with modeling cowls for me.

And before anyone brings up the subject of Ricky cruelty, I'll have you know that he started purring when I put the cowl on him.

I'm melting

Wow! It is seriously too hot (34C on Wed & Thurs and setting new temperature records) to do anything. I've got a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening for chores and the rest of the day is spent downstairs in front of a fan watching TV. So far, I've watched Coraline and season 2 of Pushing Daisies. I've also been surfing the net. Here are two cool things: Catcerto and Maru videos on YouTube.

My garden is suffering, too. I've pulled my hanging baskets down and they're in the shade now. My begonias on the shaded front porch are wilting even with twice daily waterings. I am worried that my new maple tree will fry.

I've been trying to keep the cats cool - pointing fans at them as much as I can. Ricky was looking very wilted this evening so I picked him up and put him in front of fan that was blowing over a block of ice. He stayed put for quite awhile and his ears felt much cooler when he jumped down.

Today is much cooler and I finally got some knitting done.


Pattern: Ivy's Cowl by Misty Wade (Ravelry download only)
Yarn: Rowan Rowanspun Aran; 1 skein; col 973 red
Needles: 5mm circs
Notes: I probably have enough yarn for another repeat of the chart. Another Christmas cowl done - check!

As you can see, Ricky was less than co-operative with the photo shoot. He was kinda hoping I'd feed him supper instead of stuffing him into a wooly cowl.


Ricky sez, "I have escaped the dreaded cowl! Time for a snooze."

Christmas in July

I never knit 6 rounds of the Anemoi mitten chart. I never found out on the 7th round that I "lost" 4 sts somewhere. I never spent time trying to figure out where those 4 sts are. I never ripped apart 6 rounds of stranded sticky shetland yarn because I never knit them. I will deny any involvement. Luckily, the cats won't tattle on me.

I'm taking a break from Anemoi knitting. A looooong break. In between a little sock knitting and a lot of frogging, I started my Christmas knitting.


Pattern: Ridged Lace Cowl by Elinor Brown
Yarn: Hempwol(65% wool, 35% hemp); one skein in colour Riviera (#46)
Needles: 5mm Addi Turbo circ
Notes: The yarn is a bit sheddy and as expected, the hemp feels rough. The yarn had some definite thick & thin spots.

One down and many more to go. I immediately cast on another cowl.


The next one is red. I think the blue one looks better on Ricky, don't you?


Ricky sez, "What is this thing?!?!?!"