No knitting related content today. I have a couple of projects I'm working on, the main one being the Monkey socks by Cookie A. from Knitty. Jude, if you're reading this, I really am working on your mitts, I'm just being a perfectionist about it. The yarn is not behaving and needs a few more stern talkings to.

So, here are a few pictures of the boys on Christmas day opening their presents. I hope we didn't go too overboard. I think if the stack of presents is higher than the kid then that's too much.

Here's the first thing we opened. We decided Mal got to open the first thing, and that's the Little Mermaid dvd my mother in law sent. Mal needed a little help getting started, but once he got the hang of it he started ripping paper like a pro.

Normally, I don't buy the BX brand toys because they're very obviously cheaply made but this was too adorable to pass up, especially for 4.99. I love how they have just about everything you need for a sushi platter, complete with a dab of wasabi paste and some pickled ginger.

We saw these at the local German toy store, and figured we'd better buy each of the boys one now before we got back to the States and couldn't find them. They are genuine metal capguns, with working parts that can be oiled,and a holster. Jason had these growing up and can attest that they last forever. You can't really find cap guns like this at Toys R Us anymore. I wasn't so sure about getting them because I don't want to encourage violence, but then they always seem to find creative ways to smack each other with their nonviolent toys, so I gave Jason the go ahead. I think he had more fun playing with them than the boys did.

The rest of the day we just lazed about, noshing on the sausage basket my mother in law sent, and watching movies. I saw Christmas Story for the first time and it was so great. That one is definitely going to become a tradition in our house.

I hope everyone else's holiday was as nice, and have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Normally, I get really stressed out over the holidays. I seem to pick up on everyone's nervous energy, and it also distresses me to see how badly some people get the "Gimmes". Presents are nice, but even if you're not religious, there should be more to Christmas than who got the biggest box.

However, this year I'm looking forward to it. Wyatt seems to really get things this year, and has been reall yexcited about the Christmas preparations. We put up a tree and lights, and have been present shopping. He got a real kick out of visiting Santa once he realized he was the one who delivered presents.

I have everything wrapped and sitting in my closet waiting for bows and ribbon. Growing up, my parents waited to put presents under the tree until Christmas Eve, so it was a lot of fun waking up and seeing presents there. I'm not doing stockings because I ran out of time to knit some but I am going to leave some candy in their shoes and tell them it's from Santa.

We aren't doing anything terribly fancy on Christmas, since all our friends have moved away. We're just planning on lying about, watching movies, and eating Mexican food. I have lots of new sock yarn to play with :) .

Today, I'm taking Wyatt to the local indoor pool since admission is free from 10 am to 3 pm. Jason's not keen on swimming and there's no way I could watch both of them by myself so he's keeping Mal. It'll be nice to have some alone time with Wyatt. I try to make sure I have time with him each day but it's hard to fit it in sometimes because Mal gets so jealous. I think I'm doing ok at sharing my time with the kids considering I grew up as an only child. I suppose it's a learning process.

Well, I'm off to do some straightening up, Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. :)

Drink, Feck, Arse

Right after I finished the last post, I realized "Crap, I have a knitting deadline". I agreed to knit a little pair of socks for another crafter's little girl (I'll post the link to her Etsy shop at the end, I don't know how to change the hyperlink to say her name instead of the whole address). I thought I had a lot more time, so didn't start the socks until the last minute. I managed to finish a pair with no problems a day and a half before I wanted to deliver them.

I'm a perfectionist, and even though we were trading, I treated this like it was a job someone was paying me for. Katie isn't a knitter, so I'm sure she wouldn't have spotted tiny mistakes, but I wanted these socks to be perfect.

I looked them over, and saw some little holes by the heels where I picked up stitches after I did the short row heel. I thought it wouldn't be a problem, that I could just tighten them up, but I didn't want the socks to look patchy inside so I decided I'd thread in a lifeline, and cut the heel out and carefully unravel it and do an afterthought heel instead. I was a little nervous about this but I took a deep breath after I put in the lifeline and snipped. Here's what it looked like pre-snip:

What a dumb thing for me to do! I must have snipped it in a wrong place beause I was having a lot of problems picking out the yarn without yanking stitches I wanted to stay intact, despite the lifeline. Not having a lot of time left, I accepted defeat and just started a new pair of socks outright because I didn't write anything down for the other socks so couldn't remember how many stitches I'd cast on, or where I made my increases and decreases.

Here's where I work in the post title: I arsed up the heel, so I said "Feck!" and felt like drinking. Instead, I busted ass and knit both the socks at the same time. I'm not clever enough to do both socks on two circulars, so I did them each on one circular doing the magic loop method. I'd work a few rows on one sock, then a few on the other. This of course made it feel like the sock would never end, but it ensured they would look the same and I wouldn't have to cast on for another sock and possibly not finish it. I did these with an afterthought heel.


Here they are knit up, toe grafted, and with the waste yarn cut with the live stitches waiting to be placed on the needles. To do this I worked the cuffs as long as I wanted them, then knit across half the stitches with the waste yarn, turned my work to purl back over them, then picked up my working yarn and kept knitting the sock down to the toe. I grafted the stitches together after I decreased to the number I wanted. Some hate grafting toes closed and will do anything to avoid it, but I actually look forward to it because it means I'm at or very close to the end point of the sock.

Katie loved the socks, and her reaction was worth scrapping the bad socks and starting over. I really enjoy making things for people who value hand made gifts. And, I got two lovely customized sweatshirts for the boys out of it, which I totally forgot to take pictures of them wearing.

Here's some yarny goodness drying on my radiator. The colors are courtesy of lemonade and orange flavored kool-aid, the yarn is white Regia 4 ply.

I'm off to knit more socks. Happy Holidays everyone! :)

An update

While I was knitting the other day, I started thinking about this blog. When I opened my account again, I was so surprised it'd been a full 4 months since I'd written! Ever since I had Mal, it seems like time goes by so much quicker than it should.

While I've dabbled in other crafts, knitting has always been in the background. I have scads of yard because I absolutely can't resist the yarn fumes. As mentioned in the comment by the blog title, I will hunt out yarn no matter where I am. I took a lovely trip to Edinburgh recently, and despite not knowing where I was, and being terrified of getting lost, I started asking around about where I could find yarn since I hadn't been able to find a dedicated yarn shop near the hostel I stayed at. As soon as I walked into the yarn department at Jenners, I felt at home. When I visited Sweden in 2004, I found a yarn shop by accident. I saw the display and couldn't resist going in. And, of course, within a week or two of moving here I knew where both the local yarn shop and the yarn department at Hela were located.

So, since I haven't quilted in a while, and won't for the forseeable future ( I'll be away from my machine for a couple of months when they pack the household goods) , I've decided to turn this into primarily a knitting blog, with my other craftiness and personal opinions thrown in.

I have a monster cold courtesy of Jason, so I'm off to reward myself with the sweet bliss of a Nyquil induced stupor. Cheers !