A visitor at the office

Someone came to visit my office this week.

After meeting the people he came to see, he decided to hang in the library.

Somehow he managed to miss his ride to lunch.

Fortunately he wasn’t too disappointed, and had tea with us in the afternoon.

2012 – Here we come!

It’s been a wonderful vacation week here at Casa Knitalone. Chad & I took the week off between Christmas & New Years, as Eliza has had ski camp/practice nearly every day. So, we got to ski nearly every day too! I took today off, as we’d decided it was going to be a short day to allow time for homework and music practicing. I did some chores, and rewarded myself with some knitting breaks.

Because the snow hasn’t been as plentiful this year, and the weather isn’t always cooperative, I’m not always skiing when we are at the mountain. I’ve been taking advantage of the forced down time to work on a couple of new projects that I cast on last week. A friend of ours just had a little girl, so I thought it would be fun to make her a little sweater. Because she has a big brother, I wanted to make him something too. I thought this would be a good chance to make one of Rebecca Danger’s Monsters. I’ve been eying them for a while, waiting for an excuse to make one. I swatched for the sweater first, but the lure of Iris the Gourmet Monster proved to be too much. I’ve finished the parts and have planned a trip to the fabric store for the necessary supplies to finish her.

I did work on the sweater as well. I picked up the pattern at my local yarn store, The Warm Ewe. It’s an original design by Lorraine, the Ruffled Baby Cardi Today I finished the back:

The irony of these two projects is that I had hoped to have some variety in my yarn weight and needle sizes so that I could give my elbow a bit of a break. Somehow, both managed to work best on size 5 needles. – The same size my Dale Sweater is worked on. Oh well, I guess I just have to find another project.

Last night we went to the mountain to watch the torchlight parade and fireworks. Unfortunately, the fog was too thick, so the fireworks were different to say the least. The sky turned different colors. It was pretty, in it’s way. I tried to get a picture of the parade, but didn’t fare too well:

We’ll be skiing again tomorrow, and my lessons start on Thursday, so it looks like ski season is here!

Happy Holidays!

The bird houses were a huge hit. My mother in law loved them! She hung them up in the kitchen right away:

She thinks they’ll be perfect for wren houses, so she’s saving them for Spring before they go outside.

We had a wonderful holiday. We started with Hanukkah on Friday:

And Hanukkah is not complete without Latkes!

Skied on Saturday, and celebrated Christmas on Sunday:

Eliza even found a pair of socks that I’d made YEARS ago:

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday!

Some Assembly Required

While my holiday knitting was done, I was still feeling the pressure, because it always takes longer than I expect for the pieces to dry. While often the drying is the last step in the process (in the case of the slippers I made a few years ago, the birdhouses had a bit of assembly that had to be done before I could truly consider them complete.

Chad helped me figure out how to block and dry them. It was quite a pantry based system:

Due to a surplus of vacation days, that somehow snuck up on me, I took today off. After baking two more batches of Spritz and some peanut blossoms I ran into to town to get some hardware for the birdhouses. It was quite the adventure. I’d tried at a craft store last night, but in spirit with my “Shop Local” theme of 2011, the local hardware store came through for me. I explained what I wanted to do, and they sent me to aisle 15 to pick out what I needed. A quick consultation with Chad confirmed my thoughts, and I was on my way!

Tonight I put the pieces together:

I will try to get some pictures during the day this weekend, but I wanted capture something tonight. I’m very happy with how they turned out. They aren’t as tailored as the pictures from the pattern, they look more like elf houses to me, but I think they are perfect for their recipient.

Tonight we felt

This weekend I finished the knitting of the birdhouses. I’d hoped to be done a little sooner, but Im not panicking yet. Here’s what the pieces looked like this morning:

Tonight the pieces are in my washer. This is my first felting project with the front loader. I’m running the quick wash with hot water, heavy soil and no spin. So far it seems to be working well.

Finished the cowl!

Today I finally finished my Cambrian Cowl. I’m not sure exactly why it took me so long. I love Ravelry, but it can certainly keep me honest. I started it in October. It was definitely a relacely quick knit, I just wanted to take mt time to sew on my buttons.

Basically, I’m happy with it. I took a quick picture with my phone:

I’d wanted to finish it yesterday, but had managed to put the buttons in such a safe spot that I couldn’t find them till it was too late.

On a non knitting note, it’s finally starting to feel like winter (again) around here. Last night we watched Eliza’s performance in the Nutcracker, and today we finally got to go skiing!

So in less than 12 hours she goes from this:

To here:

It was a short ski day for me – with so few trails open, I really only took 3 runs. It was so great to be out there.

WIP Wednesday

The other thing I love about felted (or fulling, as I recall it’s more accurately called) is how quickly the items knit up. I get to work on really big needles with really big yarn.

The base is done, and the roof is nearing completion. So far so good!

Birdhouse or hat?

I love felting, everything looks like something out of Dr. Seuss. the base is done and it looks like the catin the hat’s hat:

Before I started the roof I realized none of my stitch markers were big enough for the size 13 needles this called for. So I put a few together.

Time to make a big cone now!

Starting to look a lot like Christmas!

Well, as the month progresses and the holidays approach, I get more and more excited. Tomorrow we are going to a Tea Party hosted by Eliza’s Dance Company. I volunteered to make some cookies to bring. One of my favorite cookies to make and eat is Spritz – the pressed butter cookie.

They’ve been tested and approved. I made 4 batches – lots of butter was used. Now we just have to try not to eat any (more) before tomorrow afternoon.

I also decided I did indeed want to make my mother-in-law a gift for Christmas. When we went to the New England Fibre Festival last month we saw some felted birdhouses. Of course I didn’t grab a card, so I did some searching to see if I could find the vendor. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to. But what I did find was a pattern. So within minutes (I love the internet) I’d downloaded it and had committed myself to some holiday knitting! Yarn has been procured, and I’ll be casting on this evening!

Copyright Fiber Trends

Are you getting excited for the holidays?

Booking Through Thursday: Mood Reading

Do you find that your mood affects the things you read? Like, if you’re in a bad mood, do you tend to indulge in reading that will support it or do you try to read things that will cheer you up? Do you pick different types of books on dreary, rainy days than you do on bright sunny ones?
For that matter, does your mood color what you’re reading, so that a funny book isn’t so funny or a serious one not so deep?

Interesting question! I guess I hadn’t thought about it consciously, but now that I am thinking about it, I’d have to say, Yes it does!

As I’ve stated before, my reading tends to be on the fluffy side, mystery series side. But that said, when I go to the library to get a stack, I try to mix it up – some dark, some light, and I’ll pick my book based on what I may need at the time. So, if I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’ll go for the fluff. And I do think I’ve sabotaged my reading in the past, when I wasn’t in the right mood.

Looking forward to seeing what others have to say!