Fuzzy Love

Under the Influence

I started a Noro Striped Scarf. I didn't intend to. I've always liked this scarf, and sort of have had it brewing in the back of my mind, but had no real plans (or the yarn) to make one any time soon. I saw the Harlot made one and I was fine. Then she made another, and I had to resist a bit. Then she made three. I went to the store. But it's going to make a great gift for someone in my family (who doesn't read the blog).

And see the mug? Stacey has one. I wanted it. And it's not like I really had to go out of my way to go to Starbucks. I especially like how it could use a good blocking.

Mark and I have been reviewing our Christmas music collection and are a bit disappointed. We don't have any plain ol' classic Christmas songs. We do have some good music (A Charlie Brown Christmas, anyone?) but not one Silent Night, one Little Drummer Boy, or even a Jingle Bells, for god's sake. Soooo, to continue in that spirit of stealing all your good ideas, can you guys recommend some essential Christmas music? I have an ITunes gift card that is burning a hole here and, if left to my own devices, I'm going to end up with The Chipmunk Song, I can feel it.

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Turkeys

I finished Olivia's mittens. Thankfully she loves them.

They've been dubbed the Lollipop Mittens. But I gotta tell ya' the embroidery did not come easy. I tried snowflakes first, but any sort of symmetry just wasn't happening and that bugged me. The whole thing felt awkward, cramped, and messy, which may be why stabilizers were invented. Then I went the button route instead and decided to just go with the flow. I do like the end results. I'm telling myself they're....whimsical. And they make Olivia dance.

Also: Happy Thanksgiving, all you Americans! We're joining a friend's family again this year. We're going up to Boulder, where her father lives in a house on the side of a mountain, with beautiful views of unspoiled...mountains. It'll be good food, good company, and all that. Stuffing, gravy, wine, pie. And a little extra thankful never hurt anybody. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh, and just in case you need some help with dinner, Liam's teacher sent home a fabulous book of Kindergarten Thanksgiving recipes. Liam was assigned turkey and his recipe is: "I don't even have a clue!" (I swear to god, that kid.) Another favorite was the stuffing one: "You start with stuff....I forget the other ingredients."

So Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so thankful you're out there, my imaginary friends. Eat well, drink well, and be safe, 'kay?

Livvy Lu

is no longer two.

My baby is three. ::sniff::

We celebrated her birthday pretty much all weekend, until the cake ran out. I think she had a pretty good time. She took phone calls, invited people over for dinner, and politely inquired, "Did you get me a pwesent?" Sometimes she's so grown up it kills me. She can and does make her own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She is suddenly fully potty trained. And she plays in the basement all by herself: "I am not 'fraid of monsters. I am big and brave and stwong." (Like Grover, she shuns contractions.)

Oh yes, and she's a "ballerine".

She is the sunny little light around here. I swear, this girl has accidently snapped a toy in half, been sad for just a moment, and then jumped up and down and clapped because now she had two (okay, it was a stick, but it was a really fun stick). I am waked up every morning with a joyful, "Mommy! Mommy! It's morning! It's morning!" She is the first to share, the first to comfort, the first to include. She is all love, my little girl.

And, on the flip side of sunny, good god she can take you down with one grumpy look. This picture is not even full-on grumpy; that's when she - I swear to god - rolls her eyes back into her head with her mouth slightly open in a, "I can't believe I have to deal with this crap" kind of way. (I'm working on a picture, but they're hard to catch.)

It's been a blink of an eye, I swear, since she was:

and it will be another blink and she'll be off to college. How bittersweet all this growing up is from the parent side!*

*Liam suggested we get another baby. For the record, the answer to that is a big N. O. But what he actually said was, "You could ask for another baby, Mommy." I thought he meant I could ask Mark, but nope: "You could ask China to send us one, pleeeeeease?"

Mistake Mittens

Most of what I'm knitting right now are gifts, so I'm afraid I don't have much I can show you here. Of course all will be on Ravelry. (If you really want a laugh, check out my queue (Rav link); I'd like to finish numbers one through nine before Christmas. Sob.)

But here's something I can show you: mittens for Olivia (Rav link).

I'm using the left over DIC Classy from her much-loved shrug. I gotta say, this yarn is like Malabrigo for me; every precious scrap will be used with pleasure. The colors are so pretty and, though it's not as soft, it's harder wearing. But I do think the mittens require some embroidery...some button flowers, maybe? Or one big snowflake... I don't know yet. But judging by how this mitten has gone so far, I don't suppose it will come easy. I tried so hard to screw it up.

First, this is worsted weight yarn and I began knitting it on size 7/4.5mm needles. Much too loose for a girl who spends much of her play time sucking snow off her mittens. Rrriiiiiiipppp. So I moved down to size 4/3.5mm. I probably could have gone down another size or even two, as I read somewhere that worsted on #2s makes a fine mitten, but perhaps only if you don't need to bend your fingers. We'll see how this version holds up when soggy.

Second, I knit a gauge swatch (!) and determined I had 5.5 stitches per inch. I thought I'd get a slightly bigger mitten by pretending I had 5 stitches per inch. See the flaw in that math? Plus that was knitting flat. In the round I had 6 stitches per inch. Good thing I went up a size for no reason. coughbymistakecough They fit.

Third, didn't check errata. Tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

Clever, clever me. I can just hear people out there, "Ahhh, thanks but no thanks on those hand knit Christmas presents." ; )

Oh, The Things That Go On Around Here

Liam started the day as Captain Find. He finds things. Also, he moves things, as in he'll fill up a box and move stuff to another part of the house. And then when you can't find the things he moved, he'll find them again. Sometimes that part takes a while, but he explains, "It's my first day on the job." Ahhh.

A little later, while I was upstairs getting dressed, he called up to see if he could have some cat treats. "Sure." And then, after thinking about it, "Why?"

"I'm making a cat trap!"

Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot, Chicken Pot Piiiiiiieeeee*

First of all, I've discovered that little hats are addictive. Just please ignore the ratty pompoms. Tiny pompoms are tricky and the ones I made have the mange, so I improvised and those spiky things are what I ended up with. They also might have the mange.

I knit lots because this was our first fall weekend spent mostly inside. Although we were enjoying our Indian Summer while it lasted, it's now much chillier (with perhaps snow today) and we are happy to settle into some indoor activities: reading, knitting, making up stories, checkers, building with Lego.

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen too. I've been on a bread-making kick lately, and the process finally isn't as stressful as it was at first. And Liam has declared home-made bread "the best bread in the whole world" right after English Muffins; so nice. We also tried a recipe for Chocolate-Swirl Gingerbread with a little whipped cream: delicious!

But the best making of the weekend (closely beating out the mini hats on account of the pompoms) was this recipe for chicken pot pie. We subbed three chicken breasts and boxed broth for a whole chicken, but we did everything else as per the recipe. So we fed the kids....umm.....something else, put them to bed, and sat down to our own dinner at about nine. Well. I have never had such a delicious chicken pot pie. Honestly; I've craving it again right now. Really badly, actually.

So, what do make next? Olivia would like some purple mittens, Liam wants a red scarf, but I do have some undisclosable holiday knitting plans (well, of course they'll be on Ravelry) and time's a gettin' short. Yikes.

*The chicken pot pie song is probably something only Mark and I would find funny, but it's one of those things we sing from time to time: here's a link.

Mini Madness

I'm on a mini spree at the moment.

For heaven's sake why, you ask? Well, it all started when I saw projects like this baby sock advent calendar that was inspired by this Martha one and then there's this little mitten/hat advent calendar that also translates nicely into a knitting project. And I saw the clothesline project in Itty Bitty Nursery, and thought that would be adorable hanging in our playroom. So I had minis brewing in the back of my mind for a while and then someone on Ravelry had an idea for a mini swap and it sounded like so much fun, I signed up twice.

Just guess where this is going: I furiously knit minis for a few weeks, got burnt out, forgot about them, and now with the swap deadline looming, I'm furiously knitting minis again. I knew this would happen, but I did it anyway. What does that say about me, I wonder? (A bit too much, methinks.)

Anyway, they are fun little projects: they take virtually no yarn and no time. Who cares that they also have virtually no use? They're cute! And free patterns abound.

There are adorable mini mittens, which I tried in some leftover Malabrigo; it made a mitten that is perfect advent-calendar sized. But I'd like to make some tiny sock scrap ones.

I have two favorite sock patterns: the one pictured above was knit in the round on #2s, which was a bit fiddly (of course), but still quick. I didn't bother with grafting the toe; I just did one round of K2T, drew the yarn through, and called it done. The other one I like is knit flat and has some adorable Christmas pattern possibilities. Flat does mean seaming, but it's only a little tiny bit. Each sock takes about an hour.

This one's perfect for Red Sox fans.

Berocco published a whole bunch of tiny sweater patterns: Minutia and Minutia '08. I think I'll try this little raglan  next. And don't forget hats! Love that the first step is pop your feet up with a cup of tea.

Too much fun. Does anyone know where I can get little tiny clothespins?

YES WE DID!

I Finished Something!

Olivia's Neckdown Bolero (Rav link) is finally finished! Although I've stashed a bunch of it, this was my first time actually knitting with Dream in Color (this is Classy in Pansy Golightly) and I really enjoyed it. I'm always drawn to interesting color combos even when I don't like them knit up, but these are pretty yet subtle enough that I don't feel like the project screams home made (unlike Olivia's last purple sweater - ugh). Now to see how it wears.

I really did enjoy this project, even though I didn't work on it very steadily. There are a lot of stitches to pick up (the collar, the ribbing on the bottom edge, and then a little under each sleeve) and picking up stitches could be my favorite part of knitting right after casting on. And get this: the bottom edge requires picking up way more stitches than there is room for them, meaning that sometimes I picked up in both the whole stitch and then just half of the same stitch. That was new to me but seems a handy trick; it gives a lovely curve to the front edge. I know it looks wonky in the top picture - the wiggle worm was out in full force this morning - but isn't really.

The other tricky part of this sweater was button placement, since there's no obvious place to put them and the instructions just say to sew them on. The spot that looked best when the sweater was lying still pulled a lot when on. It took a few tries and probably could have done with a few more but Olivia decided she was done participating. This would be a tough sweater to make as a gift for that reason (and accounts for the vastly differing fits on Ravelry). So I'm still not sure about placement but I'm in complete love with the actual buttons:

They're pewter and have snowflakes on them. My mother-in-law gave them to me a few years ago and they've been waiting for the perfect project ever since (and I still have five left - yay). I was thinking of maybe a wooden button for this sweater, but Olivia saw me testing the snowflakes and the decision was made for me.

Okay, so now we just need some sweater weather. It was in the seventies again today. How strange to be crunching our way through the fall leaves in shorts.