It’s a coffee mug from Starbucks that looks like a cable knit sweater! I first saw this on The Chum a couple days before Christmas, but hadn’t been able to find one. I thought I’d be stuck going to eBay for a used one. Thankfully, my DH had his eye out and he scored one today! I think I’m going to use it as a pen holder for my office.
Not much knitting going on around here. I’m on my fourth day of a headache and I can barely see. I’ve got the migraine meds on board and I’m just hoping they kick in soon!
Today was our monthly knitting group meeting at the Borders in Bowie. Was I ever surprised to see so many new faces! Today I got to welcome about four people I hadn’t met before.
Lisa came for the first time today, and brought two hats in progress, and a scarf. One of the hats became an FO and she was looking SO cute in it today.
Leslie came once in November when I wasn’t there, so I never met her before today. At least not in real life. But, once when she was headed to a new yarn shop, she and I swapped a flurry of excited emails about the shop thanks to her cell phone. Small World! Leslie also encouraged her friend Melinda to come. Melinda was knitting a scarf with two yummy purple yarns that I covet.
Old friends Lola, Rhoda, Dina, Tammy, and Diane were also there today. Oh, and the wonderful Marie! Marie has done a wonderful job of promoting our group and bringing folks in. Today she was excited to shop for knitting magazines with Lisa, and to share with the group that a Ravelry friend of hers just had a pattern published in Interweave Crochet. (That magazine rocks, by the way. Not sure my grandmother would have known what to do with it.)
It was great to see so many new faces today and for all of us to be together in the New Year. I’m already looking forward to next month.
Wait, you didn’t actually think I’d have one of those silly “I won’t buy any new yarn this year,” resolutions, did you? Moi? Uh huh.
Well, ok, technically, it was last year when I bought it. And it came today! Yay! What is it? Why it is this pile o’ loveliness:
seven shades of Dream In Color Classy
When Sheri at The Loopy Ewewrote last week that they had the Dream in Color Classy new shades of yarn in, I thought I’d click on over and check them out. As you can see, maybe I shouldn’t have! The colors are so yummy and warm and they looked so nice together that I had to have a bunch of them! These guys are destined to be a Tulip Baby Sweater. No, I don’t know of a baby to give them to. But eventually there will be one, and I will be ready. (Did I mention, sheepishly, that I actually have a Tulip Cardigan Kit waiting to be knit up already? Shhhhh…. we won’t talk about that.) At least this way with full skeins of each color I should be able to whip up some matching booties and a hat. Or maybe a whole other sweater with the stripes in a different order.
Ravelry Now a Household Word
My nearly 13-year-old daughter loves to make bottle cap art with Klutz Capsters, and asked for more bottle caps in her Christmas stocking. They arrived a little late (Santa was backordered) but she did find them in her stocking on New Year’s Eve and has already made a whole pile of new bottle cap art objects. “What do you plan to do with them, Diana?” I ask. I got a shrug and a giggle for an answer.
She dumped her collection of bottle caps on the floor tonight for me to see them all, and she said, handing me two of them, “Look, mom, isn’t this the Ravelry dog?”
Bottle cap art with Bob
Oh my! Bob is everywhere! Ok so maybe these aren’t as cute as the real thing, but hey, my kid knows who Bob is! I think that means I’m too obsessed with my knitting community. But, hey… there are worse things that could be.
Not even the sound blocking earbuds that cost me a hundred dollars could save me from the snore monster today. At 7:19 when I emerged to the kitchen to find something to occupy myself in a sleeping house, the sky was still nearly pitch black. Oh joy. Another cloudy day.
So it’s been a couple of days since I’ve made time for the knitting. I decided now would be as good a time as any to get it out, what with no extraneous interruptions. That’s a rare thing around here.
I’ve been working on a hat for my daughter for what seems like forever. A couple of weeks ago, I dropped some stitches in the ribbing and did a fairly lousy job of picking them back up. And it’s been bugging me. So I used my quiet time this morning to ladder the ribbing back down and fix it:
closeup of crochet hook on hat ribbing
So I pulled out Aunt Honey’s red steel crochet hook and threw confidence to the wind and laddered down. Aunt Honey was my husband’s great aunt, and she was quite the crocheter in her day. When my inlaws were going through her belongings years ago, they brought me all of her crafting supplies, figuring I’d know what to do with them best. There were all manner of dime store variety crochet hooks in just about every color and size, and some sewing needles and embroidery needles, and a bunch of teeny tiny steel crochet hooks for lace. But I keep going back to the red one. It’s my favorite size for fixing mistakes in my knitting, and I am rarely without it. As you can see, it did a fairly good job of re-knitting my columns of ribbing. Even I can almost not tell where the mistake was before.
I used to crochet, but can’t anymore because it hurts my hands. But, I hold on to this collection of hooks for sentiment’s sake, hoping against hope that maybe someday I can once again pick up the hook without pain. I miss making all kinds of shell stitches. Knitted feather and fan doesn’t quite cut it and I can’t quite make it give me the same satisfaction.
Ah well, the house is no longer quiet and I guess I’d best be going if I’m ever going to get anything done today. Off to the showers, and then maybe Starbucks.
Were it not for a slight accident this morning with the needle slipping out of the stitches and quite a few more than I would have wanted being dropped, I might be writing the Finished Object Report instead of just a run of the mill progress report. But, such is life when we’re knitting, eh? I’m not sure if I’ve ever knit a project that didn’t have at least some major mishap involved.
When I originally envisioned this hat I thought it might make a nice Christmas present for my daughter. Then I started it so early that I thought she’d get to wear it some this fall. And now? Well it looks like it’s regained it’s Christmas present status again. Oh well, at least I feel like I’m on track for something now!
Last night, we went around the kitchen table and each of us said what we liked best about the holidays. I asked the kids to ignore the obvious (presents!) and to pick their other favorite thing. Here’s what everybody said:
Diana: The Food
Steven: Making Christmas Cookies
John: Looking at All the Lights
Trish: Christmas Music
WordPress Upgrade And Other Site Stuff
Yesterday I upgraded this site to WordPress 2.7. So far, I love it! If you’re thinking of upgrading, there are a couple of things to consider. At least there are a couple of basics that I did that helped make things go smoothly. First, I made sure that the theme I’m using is 2.7-compatible (it is). I grabbed the latest version of my theme, installed the upgrade, then disabled all my plugins, and let my hosting company do the automatic upgrade. Then I went in and reactivated my plugins. That’s all there was to it!
I’m finding that it’s hard to maintain three separate blogs, so I’m going to do some more general type blogging here from time to time. I’ll still keep my family blog, but even that needs a serious update. But I’m going to add a page for my writings and stuff that I had intended to develop at my long-neglected personal blog.
This blog will still be a knitting blog, but you might notice a couple of other sections in the menu over time. I’m just finding it harder and harder to even think about keeping up with three blogs. Let me know if you have any feedback on this issue! For now, I’ve uploaded an article I wrote for my college newspaper, more than 20 years ago. Even though my life is in a completely different place now, this article captures how I’m feeling right now:
Here’s the proof. This is why I don’t do holiday knitting, or occasion knitting in general. It’s been a month and a half since I started this hat, and I’m still working on it. Yes, this has been my main project in most of this time. I’ve done a stitch here and there on a couple of things, but nothing else to write home about. If Christmas depended on my knitting? Christmas would just never come.
But hey! I made a milestone on the hat today. I am on the ribbing! I asked my daughter to try it on and it is just about the perfect size. I am not going to do a very deep rib, because it doesn’t need one. Then the last thing will be to add the words, “Lady Hawks” to the white band in duplicate stitch.
I started feeling stressed about all there is to do over the next several weeks, and I made myself stop and knit for a bit instead. It helped. Now, if only I could teach my DH to knit… We’re seriously behind. No decorations are up and ready. The shopping’s about done, which I guess is a good thing! But I think it remains to be seen whether we will have outdoor lights or Christmas cards mailed before Inauguration Day. And you know what? I’m going to do my best not to care.
I’m getting the feeling it’s going to be a long, cold winter here. It is unseasonably winter-like for this early in December and we even had some snow yesterday. The wind has been cold and biting. Perhaps I should start a countdown calendar for Spring. I’m so ready already!
Hopefully I’ll write again soon. If not, you’ll probably find me buried under a pile of unopened ornaments somewhere.
, and asked for more bottle caps in her Christmas stocking. They arrived a little late (Santa was backordered) but she did find them in her stocking on New Year’s Eve and has already made a whole pile of new bottle cap art objects. “What do you plan to do with them, Diana?” I ask. I got a shrug and a giggle for an answer. 
