Fetch my mittens please

I know its a bad pun - but these are good mittens! I finished the fetching mittens using a single ball of Cashmerino Aran (as called for in the pattern). The pattern warns that you will have less than a yard left, in fact I had about 4"remaining, and only because I did 2 fewer rows on the hand than called for.

However, the pattern is really quick to knit and the mittens are cute, and the cashmerino aran works really well. So, I immediately cast on another pair - this time in the knitpicks bare that I dyed with Kool-aid. I think I'm going to give these mittens to my neighbour who admired my green mittens (big mistake for her! Ha ha...you like these green mittens? let me give you some completely different in purple).

Looking at this photo I am astonished that I do not have a highly lucrative as a hand model...now added to the little fat hands with fingers like sausages I seem to have wrinkly wrists with age spots.

Slippers

I finished the felted clogs. Here they are before felting (little fat foot for scale).

Here they are after felting - photo by my assistant photographer of feet: Adam. They are very comfy but very slippy on my wood floors. They have been offered to Gill who has carpets! I didnt much enjoy knitting the pattern, as I dont much like knitting on large needles but since they worked out so well I may knit some more.
Another part of the knitting plan was to knit up this Jaegar Como.
I cast on to knit the Hip Hop coat from IK but Im not really happy with it. The yarn is 90% merino and 10% polyamid and is not plied - this gives the knitted fabric the effect of being 100% man made. The knitted fabric is also extremely lightweight - which I had originally thought would be good for a coat - but Im really not liking either the process of knitting this yarn, or the product. Time to put it away and let it marinate for a while.

Knitting plans

I never make any new year resolutions (probably too many years experience of not achieving them) but I do sometimes make new year plans. Ive been making knitting plans:

1. Knit the felted clogs - if they work well, knit more out of the pile of non-superwash Cascade I bought in a misguided moment.
2. Socks - got yarn for socks in my stash that I should start knitting up, mostly its pretty unexciting wool though which is why it's been languishing. I plan to knit some plain socks for Nigel, and he has also asked for cotton socks.
3. Ive got some Elann Canapone hemp yarn - I bought this to knit a shawl, I am wavering between knitting something like Icarus, or River. I think the Icarus would look nicer, but River might be more useful. The only disadvantage is that the River I already knitted is in the same sort of neutral colour. Maybe my mother would like it? Must remember to ask...and of course, got to knit it first.
4. Ive been sitting on this bag of Como for a year - I think it needs to become a sleeveless jacket. I want a long knitted cardigan/coat, but probably not in bright orange. Looking for a pattern for this.
5. I want to knit some Fetching mittens and I have a ball of Cashmerino aran. If the pattern is nice to knit I can see me knitting more than one pair.
6. Christina and I are planning a knitalong for the IK Swallowtail shawl, and I already have the Misti alpaca that the pattern calls for. No reason not to do this - apart from I'm already overloaded with shawls, however pretty. Maybe this would be a nice thing to knit for Eileen?
7. I just bought some Elsebeth Lavold silky wool to knit the cabled cardigan in Vogue Knitting this month. Its the only pattern in the entire magazine that I like, but it calls for a 100% cashmere yarn...I like silky wool so I'm hoping it will be a good substitute. Little cardigans are actually knitwear that I will wear a lot.
8. Got 800 yards of this linen/cotton mix, probably be a summer top for me.
9. Got to knit something out of the stuff I dyed - maybe mittens - but again, if I dont do it soon will not be needing mittens for a while.
10. I bought a nice pattern for a lacy scarf - Ive got some nice yarn that would work for it - but cant decide which.
11. Been sitting on this Artyarns Supermerino for a year (was supposed to be my tank top but I did that in Shepherd Sport in the end. Not sure what to knit it into - Ive about 600 yards so not enough for a sweater. Maybe another clapotis? I wear the Noro one enough.
12. Got some Malabrigo to knit into a hat for me, again, if I dont do it soon, wont be worth it until next fall.

So, I have enough plans to keep me knitting for the forseeeable future. Several of these plans are small-scale though so should be able to get through quite a few. Stitches West is coming soon and although I dont have huge shopping plans I'm hoping to pick up some more STR. I didn't buy much last year but it was nice to see what was available and get some inspiration, although it does not look as if I need any more ideas of what to knit...just some actual knitting.

Immediate next thing on the needles is going to be a camera case for Adam, and that has not even made it onto the list!

Work in progress

Here are my current works in progress: On the left a felted clog from the fibretrends pattern. On the right a sock for me. Its a k3 p1 rib in Peace Fleece wool in colour Waterlily. The wool is lovely and soft but I was disappointed to read its hand-wash only - after I wound the ball. I should have made gloves really - but too late now.


I have always admired this blogger for her artistic photographs of her knitting and baking. I aspire to be the sort of mother who produces home-baked rock buns for her offspring at the end of a busy day. However, the sort of mother I actually am is one who assists her children in creations such as these:

These are Jelly Wigglers (or jello wigglers if you are american). Adam saw the idea in his Pixar Annual and wanted to make them...nutritional value=0, entertainment value 10/10, especially when Adam had a tantrum when the eyes fell off his wiggler! Next day I substituted raisins for the cherries and the eyes didnt fall off.

Charlotte's Web

I finished my Charlotte's Web shawl. I didnt add the fringe as I felt it made the shawl too 'old lady' - you might say that any shawl is 'old lady' enough with or without fringe - but I'm happy with it.

The pattern calls for 5 skeins of koigu varigated yarn. This shawl is knitted in 3 semi-solid koigu kppm (the light and mid blue, and the green), the blue/purple variagated is Claudia's handpainted, and the brown is Collinette jitterbug. Other than substituting the yarn and ommitting the fringe, I followed the pattern. I dont think I will overdye the blue, now the shawl is completed and blocked, the light blue does not look so incongruous.

It was a really nice knit, the lace pattern was simple and memorable and the colour changes kept me interested in the pattern. The shawl is nice and large, and I hope will be robust enough so I dont need to worry about catching it on things.

More received knitting

This is my new knitting bag, courtesy of guess who?. The photo does not show the lovely lining, or the detail of the decoration on the front.

My fab new bag is currently housing Charlotte's Web. Its a koigu design, intended to be worked in 5 variegated yarns.

I wanted a shawl in blue and brown but could not find enough variegated yarn in those colours, so I have the semi-solid blues and green. I dont mind the striping too much, but Im not sure about the lightest blue. The lightest blue does not really show in this photo, its the smallest colour range, but its so much lighter than the other colours it does not really blend as well as I had hoped. Kerstin suggested dipping this secti0n of the shawl in tea, so once I have finished the knitting I may do some experimenting. The last colour is the brown variegated yarn in the ball, it is the largest band of colour and may change the appearance of the overall shawl enough that I dont care about the light blue.

Charlotte's web is very appropriate at the moment as I went with Adam's class to see a theatre production of this childrens classic at the Santa Clara University Theatre. It was a lovely version, only an hour long, and really seemed to capture the childrens attention.

Im sure these chaps would win the Ashes

I did mention Christmas knitting received- these fellows were actually sent to the boys, but have been appropriated by Nigel and I.



The outfits were of course made by Christina. In addition the action men also received football strips and some manly sweaters, hats, scarves, and mittens.

Things we did in 2006 (just)

On Friday we went to Ano Nuevo State park to see the Elephant seals. It was a lovely bright day and we saw lots of seals, including several pups. We also witnessed a small amount of male-seal posturing which was quite frightening as they were pretty close to us and moving faster than you might expect.

The walk is about 2.5 hours and the boys did really well both walking and listening to the docent.

On Sunday we had their birthday party at Pump-it-up in Sunnyvale. They, and their friends, had a great time bouncing and eating cake. Our boys were exhausted afterwards,

So, a lovely end to 2006. Wishing you a Happy New Year for 2007.

Jaywalking

My hands are now better so I finished the second jaywalker. This is such a wonderful pattern; easy to knit, the construction I like for socks, and a good fit. I really think that the chevron effect with the self-striping yarn works well. The yarn is Socks that Rock in Moss Agate and I also really like the wool, it's soft to work with.

My photographer was Adam who recieved a camera for his birthday and is thrilled to photograph my feet for me. I'm standing on an old sea chest I got for my 21st birthday from my then boyfriend. It's covered with a quilt made by Christina a couple of years ago.

I also want to link to another blog, this time of my friend Louise who has recently moved to Senegal. I have known Louise since high school, which is now a horrifying 28 years! Her blog is already full of interesting details about living in West Africa so I'm looking forward to reading more, and to seeing some photographs.

The secret knitting

I can now show some of the secret Christmas knitting. This is a sweater I knitted for Gill. The pattern is the Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and it's knitted in Elann 100% alpaca. It was really nice to knit and the fabric is very soft.


Also for Gill are these cashmere socks. The yarn is from PoshYarns, the pattern my generic sock pattern.

There were also socks for Mammie and a cardigan for Christina. However, i seem not to have taken photos of these.

Next post...knitting that I received...

I'm dreaming...

of a sunny Christmas. Here in LG it is sunny at the moment, with rain forecast for later in the week. So it was a change to pass through this on our way back from Tahoe.

Its as close to a white Christmas as we are going to get here. Nigel is off on a bike ride, and I need to go and collect the bird shortly... we are getting ready. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas from all of us here at Ferretworld.

On skiing and being six

On Monday we headed up to the Sierras for a few days skiing at NorthStar. There was not a great deal of snow - but quite a lot of the resort was open and there was enough skiing for us for 3 days. Tuesday was Adam's sixth birthday - he celebrated with a long day skiing.

He is very confident now and we can pretty well ski all over the green and blue runs at Northstar. He skiied from the summit of mt Pluto to the village. We also had birthday presents and cake of course.

Finlay was less keen on the skiing. We did get him out for a few hours each day skiing on the end of our poles. He also skiied a lot of the green and blue runs but does not share Adam's confidence. What he really wants to do is play in the snow.
He discovered that a toboggan goes much faster when Mummy sits on the back! He also wanted to build a snowman, but in the village there was not enough snow so we made something smaller...
It's a snow-ferret - here with my own dear ferret.

Deck the halls with...

Well, actually we don't have any boughs of holly, but we do have this:

If you look closely you can see the angel and snowman chains that they boys made - heavily decorated with glitter glue. Somehow glitter glue just does not have the same appeal as those phials of glitter that we used to have - but probably a lot less messy (and the glitter glue was messy enough for me to begin with).

On Saturday Adam and I went with Emma to see The Nutcracker at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.

This was Adam's first experience of ballet which he summed up after the first 10 minutes... "but it's all just dancing".

Having said that he was still and quiet for all of the 2-hour performance. It was a semi-amateur performance, with only the principals being professional. The part of Clara was danced by the daughter of a friend of Julie's so we got to go backstage and meet her afterwards. The standard of the production was high and they had a full orchestra so I really enjoyed the whole performance.

Afterwards we went to Marinelli's in Santa Cruz and had hot chocolate with 'smudge' (fudge) on the side - heavenly - but so filling I could not eat dinner!

Getting the tree

On Sunday we went to Castle Rock Tree Farm on Skyline Blvd to get our tree. It's become a Christmas tradition to go there and the boys love it because there is mud, dogs, and sharp instruments.

As always, we chose what we think is a small-ish tree, then can barely fit it into the living room.

Knitting....and not knitting

Here is my latest knitting effort...

These are for the boys' school teachers for Christmas gifts. This is a different pattern than those I knitted for Jules, this pattern came from my knitting group at the library.
However, this is the last of my knitting for the time being...I went to the doctor on Monday about a pain in my left hand and I am ordered not to knit for a week at least.
My doctor actually said "Knitting is a completely dispensible activity....I, for example, have never knitted" Anyway - until the brace is off I am just thinking about what I'm going to knit next...after the second jaywalker

I'm really impressed with this pattern, its so simple but it really looks good in a self-striping yarn. This is Socks That Rock. The fit of the sock is also really good - the chevron pattern is very elastic.

A Christmas me-me

NAME: Ferretworld
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog – but only from the hut in Ortesei with the dishy guy.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped of course, they appear magically on Christmas morning. This is a new tradition for us since it stops the boys opening any presents in advance - their own or mine!
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White on the outside - icicles on house, baubles in porch, 2 reindeer on lawn, and lights on tree (did I say classy?). On tree inisde I have moved to coloured lights.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? When I can get it.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Outside lights usually the weekend after Thanksgiving, inside decos around the 10th
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Bread sauce – Im the only one who likes it but I still make a pint all for myself.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Oh so many – the best is probably the sensation of waking on Christmas morning with the heaviness of my filled stocking on my feet.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Probably the time when my father tripped in the bedroom and loudly swore! (Actually I think I long knew by then…otherwise might have been terrified by the cursing Santa!).
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Recently Nigel and I started exchanging our presents on Christmas Eve so that Christmas morning we could concentrate on the children – even so it takes them all day to open their presents as they want to stop and play with each gift as they open it.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? With all the decorations in the lower branches….
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it – but it’s not exactly a feature of Christmas here.
12. Can you ice skate? Nope
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? It would be hard to single out any one thing – my family are really good at present chosing
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Sounds really cheesy but I like to spend the time chosing presents and sending cards to old friends. I also like to get those circular Christmas letters from friends that I don’t otherwise hear from.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? I was going to say that there is only one – but then I remembered Trifle too.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Again – all of them. Doing Christmassy things with the boys is just so much fun. Probably my absolute favourite is opening our stockings all together in bed in the morning.
17. What tops your tree? Star that Nigel and I made out of twigs and copper wire our first Christmas in this house when we realized we didn’t have a tree-top decoration.
18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? Definitely, giving (but receiving is nice too :-)
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Deck the Halls probably – don’t hear too many carols these days
20. Candy Canes... Yuck or Yum? Don’t think I’ve ever eaten one…might have to try this year.

A busy weekend

Saturday was the 50th Annual LG Children's Parade. We went downtown to watch the 2-hours of bands, floats, vehicles, and these people...

They are in the parade every year drilling with thier squashes...but I have no idea who they are - or why they are doing it.

The big event of the weekend was Finlay's birthday - he reached the ripe old age of 4 on Sunday.

For his birthday he received roller skates. He insisted on skating all the way into town for his birthday treat which was a carriage ride around town to see all the Christmas lights. It was a lovely clear crisp evening and we had a great driver who took us on an extra detour to see some particularly well decorated houses.

And of course I exploited my talents in cake decorating to make him a cake. (Its a banana cake).

You see why I usually buy the birthday cakes!

Ali longstocking

I finished my long socks. These were my first attempt at 2 at once toe-up socks and it was with mixed success. I used Kristen's pattern, which worked really well, but the short-row heels just dont have the same fit as a heel flap. While I did like getting both finished together, and the convenience that I was making up the pattern as I went along, without having to take notes, I didnt much like knitting the pair simultaneously as my wool kept getting tangled.

So, here they are - knee socks. Knit in Lanna Grossa. I made several mistakes in my pattern - that is my extending them to be knee socks. I basically didnt increase enough stitches quickly enough for my calves. They fit OK - but the stitches are a little distorted, especially on the rib. Next pair I'm going back to my usual top-down pattern on dpns.

By the way - the artistic shot of the socks is deliberate - knee socks are not flattering on any but the most skinny-legged of us!

This photo of Finlay was taken on Friday when he decided to make some animal cards. He went to Adam's school and some of the boys had cards with animal photos and facts on them. Finlay had me write the animal names on the cards and then he drew the animals (lion, leopard, tiger, cat) to make his own cards. He then cut them to fit a mint tin so he could carry them around. Remind you of anyone? ("I could make that...")

Thanksgiving mouse

We spent Thanksgiving at Disneyland this year. We had a great time with the Beamishes. The weather was great, crowds not too bad, and the boys really enjoyed the rides.


Here they are just about to board the paddle steamer.
Their favourite was the "Star Tours" ride, with Pirates coming second. We followed our day with Mickey, with a day at the beach at Ventura. No turkey was consumed at any time...we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Tony Roma's, and the following night ended up at a Greek restaurant complete with belly dancers. Finlay was sitting right on the dancefloor and was transfixed, although to be truthful he was more impressed by the guy dancing with a glass of wine on his head.

Ayyrr Matey

The pirate hats are finished. These are for the boy's Christmas stockings so need to be modeled by the bears.


They are knitted from Knitpicks Swish which is the superwash worsted and the skull and crossbones are duplicate stitched.

This is the formal end of the Christmas knitting....so am relaxing with some socks. I've never knitted socks from the toe up, nor have I done a pair simultaneously. So, here they are: 2 at once, toe up socks. I'm using Kristen's pattern so am experimenting.

I wanted to knit these toe up so I can make them as long as possible. I plan to knit until I run out of wool.