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My mohair mittens are coming along. Last night, I swatched with differerent combinations of the Rowan Kidsilk Haze and the non-fuzzy mohair cone yarn.

I made some good progress while watching some DVDs Dave got for Christmas --Pirates of the Caribbean and episodes of Firefly.

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I had some credit at a yarn store and it was burning a hole in my pocket. So, I braved the traffic (yarn store or bust) and potential temper tantrums (not who you are thinking) and went to the yarn store with the idea that I would just buy some fun skeins of yarn to swatch up. Noel and Becky got the final say on color and actually, they did most of the picking. I had to shoo them away from the chemical fiber novelty yarn a few times though. Not that I don't like a good chemical fiber novelty yarn but I just wasn't in the mood today.

Noel picked the green Cleckheadon and some Artful Yarns Museum in red/orange/pink. He said, "Look Mawmee, you can make me a hat. I can wear it tonight!"

And he's probably right, but I wonder where he thinks he's going!

Becky picked some Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in purple, and one ball of Odyssey yarn in dark blues and another in purples. She also picked some flower buttons I didn't know about until the yarnlady rang them up.

And in the end I picked up some No. 15 DPNs--the biggest knitting needles I own!

This past Friday, Noel had his first holiday concert. Here's a picture my father-in-law took and I laugh everytime I look at it because I know what I was thinking at the time.

"Ohhh, there's a cookie table!"

I best get started on Noel's hat....Merry Christmas!

Think I'll make those mohair mittens pictured on the cover of the latest issue of Spin-Off.

This is a great way to use up the 2 balls of Kidsilk Haze originally intended for Birch. I plan to try swatching it up using 1 or 2 strands of the Kidsilk Haze along with one strand of some Jaggerspun laceweight mohair scour. I have a 1 pound cone of this stuff and I've been slowly knitting away at it for 3 years now. (It was a special order yarn from Jaggerspun and I snapped it up for next to nothing when the woman who'd originally ordered it decided it "wasnt' fuzzy enough." I love it for being non-fuzzy.)

When I was studying in Bayreuth, Germany in 1990 I bought this pyramid on a daytrip to Nuremburg. I was just learning German and my then-boyfriend helped me talk with the store owner and pick it out. We were touring Nuremburg at the time, so I spent the day walking around with this giant box on a string, which said, "Zerbrechlich! Fragile!"

I distinctly remember running up and down a circular tower stairway in the Kaiserburg with my friend and counting how many steps there were while carrying this big box.

Fun times....now off to give it its annual Christmas dusting...

I think I chose well to get the one with the sheepies, don't you think? Their "wool" is actually teensy little wood chips painted white.

Here is the skein from Saturday all plied up. It would make a great pair of mittens for Noel or Becky.

Ohhh, another project to start....(otherwise known as Christmas-socks-gift procrastination)

Last night I spent a while working on the edging on the right front of wrappy dress. It calls for picking up 73 stitches along the edge, but I added an inch to the length so I estimated that I would need perhaps 81 -83 stitches, but I wouldn't worry too much as long as I used the pickup rule of 3 stitches for every 4 rows.

Well! Following that rule I ended up with 97 stitches! Obviously somebody didn't knit to row gauge. Oh well...so it didn't looks so hot so out it went and I decided to pickup 2 stitches for every 3 rows.

Needless to say, that didn't quite work either.

So, I ripped that out and started anew, saying, "this time for sure it has to work..."

Well, it did work, but then I started noticing that I didn't like how the picked up stitches butted up against the corner with the bottom's blue edging. I wasn't picking up in the right place to make a smooth transition from the horizontal blue edging to the vertical blue edging. (huh?)

More learning ensued and I started again....and finally finished it all up around midnight--about 3 hours after starting. There are a few loose stitches at the corner that bug me, but I'll get over it.

Cross your fingers for me that I remember what I did so I can duplicate it for the left side.

Geez, I need to post something up, don't I?

I've been doing a lot of unproductive knitting. As in, I get all worked up over a little project, start it, then decide:

--"eh, I don't like it"
--"This will never fit!"

I don't know why I can't seem to finish up a pair of gloves or socks. I'm in the mood to make socks, damn it! I want socks!

But, fit is important for socks (and gloves--I didn't forget them either. Just pretend I'm saying "socks 'n' gloves" whenever you see "socks").

Anyway, back to the non-tangent part of the entry--Yes, you agree fit is important, yes?

But fit is apparently not my strong point. All my life, I've just been random girl (I am punctual however, and therefore, not totally random. Perhaps, I just like to think I give off the "cool" vibe of being random while I am really working at high efficiency to appear as random but am really Type A control freak girl.) ....so don't expect me to start being unrandom with my approach to fit. So, I knit and I rip and then I get bored with the yarn and then I have to start the whole random/unrandom approach to fit trying a new yarn and a new gauge.

Oh, will I have no peace till the damnable work is done?

Okay, maybe I should NOT post this up. It is, afterall, 12:39 am and I am kind of sleepy. And trapped in a snowstorm with no more diet coke available till Sunday. As good a time as any to go through caffeine withdrawl don'tcha think?

Can you believe this is titled, "Apple Blossom Scarf?" and I've not told you a single thing about it and just ranted off about socks and gloves? Predictably random.

Here I was trying to be good and write a nice, respectable post about a scarf and gloves and socks got in the way.

Sleeve one is done.
Sleeve two is through.

Is anybody else sick of The Cat in the Hat?