Fog

A couple weeks ago we were at a family get together because Brandon's Aunt Mary Lou was in town on her way to San Francisco. Mary Lou lives in Philadelphia, so its a social event when she comes to visit. We brought Brandon's grandfather over so that they could see each other. The event was at Debbie's house with a view of the Saint John's Bridge. 

Late afternoon and we were still enjoying the odd clear skies and noticed that there was also a full moon and the fog rolling in:

I had some fun with my new camera taking photographs of the fog, the bridge and the general view out on the balcony. Went back inside and continued socializing with various family members.

Then Paige spotted the moon glowing and the fog and pointed it out to me. She only had her camera phone and knew it wasn't going to be able to get the pics, so out into the cold on the balcony I went. I think they came out rather cool using the nightscene setting. There's a few for comparison to see the difference the setting makes.

I think I'll watch the Walgreen's photo sales and maybe have a couple of the above printed. Might even enter them in the fairs this summer. Which ones do you think I should use/do?  You can give them a number based on their order here.

I may or may not have some snow pictures. They're still on the camera that I need to download after getting some shawl pictures so I'll have it ready for this upcoming weekend's event - Ursulmas.

Socks, Wristwarmers and a hat

I was trying to clean up leftover works in progress from last year and so picked up a pair of wristwarmers I had started last December for Gail. They had sat in my basket for a year. So I tried working on them and was finding mistakes, or I wasn't reading the knitting well. Couldn't get excited about the pattern and really, they should have been done in a week, not languishing in my project basket for a year. So I frogged them and went looking for a pattern to use the yarn with. I tried looking for a different wristwarmer pattern and didn't find anything that excited me so looked at socks and found the International Sock of Doom pattern, simple but interesting. A nice fast knit with lovely results:

I used leftover yarn to reinforce the heels of this pair, but also the previous pair I had made for Gail. She had worn a pretty good sized hole in the heel of the first pair and the second sock was getting thin in the heel also. Both have added reinforcement so hopefully no more holes.

I then got to work on a pair of wristwarmers for Wendy. She had bought some lovely Road to China yarn - baby alpaca, camel, cashmere, and silk in a gorgeous blue called appropriately - Sapphire. The pattern set was for wristwarmers as well as a cowl.

Soft and warm for the hands in a chilly office environment!

I had fun coming up with how to used the five yarns that Lorajean sent me for a sample hat. Ida's Kitchen calls for seven yarns but I was working with five and so some math and making sure that there wasn't going to be the color I reassigned right next to itself took some planning. I still then ended up doing some reorganizing of the colors. I might not have personally picked one of the colors, but once it was altogether it worked out really well.

Currently, I'm working on the shawl to go with the wristwarmers for Wendy.  Its sooo awful to work with this yarn - NOT! I'm looking forward to giving these to her soon, I know she'll love them.

I have one item leftover from last year that I'm still going to procrastinate on. Its a blanket for the nephew, and is a spiderman style blanket. He's six now and I need to check if Spiderman is still a favorite. I might also get crazy and try to make a pullover for him instead still using the theme.

Anyone else trying to clean up WIPs? Stash that's been in there unused for more than two years?

Last project of 2011

I was knitting right up to 2012 but finished the second shortie finger glove in the pair for Brandon. The pattern calls them fingerless gloves, but to me those are ones that you don't knit each of the fingers on. The fingers aren't enclosed, so they aren't mittens. Most pairs have you stop at the first knuckle, but his request was to the second knuckle. I also found that I needed to pick up a couple extra stitches than called for on the ring and pinky fingers for him. Big hands = big fingers. He's happy with them and that's the important thing right? ;-)

I also finished out the year reading two more books than I had the previous year. Cool! 112 books read. Okay, some of those books I didn't fully read because they were anthologies and I didn't read all the short stories in them, but they were read so counted as a book. Two of those books were non-fiction even, not my normal urban fantasy/paranormal reading. I received a Kindle Fire for Christmas so I can possibly read more books, but also have internet access where there's free WiFi when out and about. Better for me than an iPad.