Winter Solstice!

  Happy Solstice! It is the longest night of the year, I will celebrate with tea, and cookies (that I baked today), snuggled under a blanket, knitting! Sounds like a perfect way to get through the shortest day, no?

 In the almost 2 weeks since my last post, I have found my Christmas spirit. We went and got a beautiful tree, and the kids decorated it. I started shopping (I still have a wee bit to do, ack!) Teacher gifts were made and assembled (more about that later) and volunteering for a week's worth of holiday related activities at B's school have made me excited and eager for xmas.  So, of course, with all of that, there hasn't been much in the way of knitting, mostly I was concerned with finishing the three wash cloths. Which really shouldn't have been a big deal, wash cloths literally take a couple of hours...but I don't do well knitting on a schedule, and knitting the same thing three times is mind numbing for me. I do really like the Knitpicks Dishie, it's just cotton, but the cotton is not hard on my hands and the colours are wonderful.

   Anyway, I knit up the 3 wash cloths, one for each of B's teachers and one for his helper, made some peppermint soap (yummy!) to put inside...

 and had B put on the eyes, nose and antlers and voila!

Wash cloth reindeer! Thanks pinterest!  I also added a gift card for Tim Hortons, because Canadian, eh!

In between the wash cloths I worked on my Virpi Shawl, and finished it! I love, love, love it! 

I lost the yarn info, but through Ravelry I was able to find out that it's Mineville Wool Project, a dk, plied merino, in a gorgeous teal.

The depth of colour is fantastic, and there's no way I'll be able to take a picture of it that will do it justice.  It's from the same women who make Fleece Artist, so it's not surprising that I loved this yarn. It was wonderful to knit with. 

I did mess up the shawl a little bit, I don't think too many people would notice unless it was pointed out to them, but I skipped one of the lines of the pattern that said to knit a full row before starting the arcs-which means the first arc widens on one end of the shawl, but the next two arcs widen at the other end. 

Still beautiful, still going to wear it!
And now I want to knit all the shawls! 

Seriously, there's been at least 3-4 nights where I could have been knitting, but instead I'd spend hours on Ravelry looking at shawl patterns. 

And since I finished my shawl, I've picked up one of the sweaters (the pullover) and have started knitting on it again,  I finished the decreases, and now I'm adding length and increases (it was supposed to be a cropped sweater, but yeah, I don't do cropped sweaters) I've got about 4 inches to go until I start the ribbing. 

Other than that, the only projects I've worked on have been socks, The felici socks, as you can see, are at the heel flap-which I am knitting with Stroll in Dove Heather.  I really like having a solid colour heel and toe when it comes to striped socks, and the dove heather works really well with the colours of my felici.

 

the second ugleh sock is about 1.5 inch away from the heel flap. I no longer hate this sock...I would never buy another yarn like it, but it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Especially if these socks are strictly boot socks (so I don't have to look at the pooling hah!)

So there we go, just a quick update! I'll probably do my next post right around the new year, with a knitting year in review where I list all the things I've knit this past year. 

Anywho, I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season! 

 

Bah humbug

It's already the second week of December *gulp* I have not started Christmas shopping, nor have I started decorating. To be fair though, we will be getting our tree this coming weekend, which will no doubt, kick my bah humbug butt into gear...I do so love the smell of a real tree.
 I struggle a little bit with xmas every year, I love giving and receiving gifts, but I'm grossed out by the commercialism. Makes me glad we don't have cable, we're not super inundated with "BUY THIS THING TO SHOW YOUR LOVE", but even without tv telling us to buy, we hear/see enough of it.  Ideally, I'd love it if everyone had to give some kind of hand-crafted item, or item purchased from a local artisan (for the non crafty peeps). With maybe some kind of baked goodies exchange!  Sadly, I don't imagine too many family members would be down with this. 
I know I sound negative, probably because I hate winter. And even though it's been unseasonably warm, and there isn't any snow yet, I just don't do well in winter months. Dark by 4pm, cold, I find it very hard. It takes me a little time to warm up to the holiday season, but I'll get there. (only for January blues to hit-ugh)

Now on to the knits!
I've got some FOs: Last week at stitch&bitch Sunday, I finished the ear flap hat for the 6yr old. He's so worthy of hand knits. He says that he always loves when I make him things because I'm such a good knitter. I was told that he never has to be reminded to put his hat and mitts away properly at school because he's so proud of them "my mommy knit me these".
Russian joining two leftover balls.

 (Mostly) finished hat!

So, there goes more stashed Berroco Vintage, and yet somehow, I still feel like I have so many balls of this stuff still in stash. Never ending Vintage (I wouldn't complain if it was Madelinetosh Vintage)

Despite my complaint of being overwhelmed by projects, I cast on a new project. It was a super quick knit, a headband called Calorimetry by Kathryn Shoendorf. I often wear my hair in a ponytail or a bun in the morning when I'm bringing B to school, so this is perfect for those mornings.
Of course, I used stashed yarn, leftover O Wool bulky in Oyster.  Reading the comments on  rav, I decided to cast on less stitches than the pattern called for. Many rav users found that it was too big with the cast on of 120 sts. I did 100, and could easily go down to 90 stitches. (which I probably will with my next one, because there will be a next one)  With 32 bind off stitches left to go, I ran out of yarn. Fuuuuuck. I was not going to frog the whole thing for 32 stitches so I looked for the closest yarn I could find to finish the bind off. I used leftover Fleece Artist BFL in smoke. It's noticeable, but not terribly so.
The best part of this pattern is that I got to go through my button box for the button closure. I love using buttons on non-sweater knits.

 

I really love this! It goes really well with my Lost Lake Heather cowl and mitts!

I cast on and finished one (out of three) wash cloths.

 It's a wash cloth. What else can I say about it? I like the colour. I don't like knitting cotton. *shrugs* I have to knit two more.

Knitting with cotton reminded me that I needed to knit another strap for my maya bag (see this post if you care) it's only been like, 6 months since I knit the first one.  Did that. Sewed it on.

Done. FO! hahaha.

I cast on another ugleh sock.

 Just to have it ready if I have to rush out of the house. I don't want a whole bunch of single socks staring at me accusingly every time I sit down to knit, so in theory, having this sock ready to go means it will eventually become a pair.

I've been saving my Virpi shawl for stitch&bitch Sundays. It was starting to feel like I was doing a lot of knitting but not getting anywhere. Yesterday,  I started the wedges. Yay!
                                                   Virpi last week.

                                                    Virpi this week.

Can I just say how much I love and need my stitch&bitch Sunday? It's three glorious hours of good company, good hot chocolate (Timmy's eh) and good knitting.  We always ending up talking to other knitters, they just kind of pop out at you " I knit too!", and they're usually pretty nice people.

And, finally,  knitting on that Felici sock!

I'm liking the felici. The colours flow very well. Knitting it isn't too bad, a little splitty, but I am using sock rockets, and pretty much everything is splitty with sock rockets. I'm eager to finish these just to see how they wear...though obviously not that eager as they are still relegated to being travel socks.


Now, I think it's time for some shopping *groan*