Merry Christmas!

We have survived the last couple of days successfully. No major family dramas, just some happy news. The cousin-in-law is pregnant and due in August. So more baby knitting in the future!

While in the shower (am I the only one that has this happen?) I remembered that I had planned to do a Blanket Buddy for Jenna. She's 18 months old and I did the Christmas Kiss Hat for her last year. So I gathered supplies and took it along with us to the MIL's house. After getting a couple of Candied Apple Cheesecakes going in the oven and then popping in the Gingerbread Cake, I sat down and started knitting on the Blanket Buddy.

We were the first of the family to arrive and there was a partially completed 1000 piece puzzle on the dining room table. Since that's where everyone gravitated to, that's where I was working on the Blanket Buddy. I did pretty well at resisting the lure of placing puzzle pieces until they pulled out the second one. Even then it was out for a couple of hours before I got sucked into the lures of finding the pieces for the area that you're working on. (We did finish the second 1000 piece puzzle before dinner.)

Fortunately this is a quick knit. I opted to do the yarn doubled, using up some of that Red Heart and fast on larger needles. I didn't finish it last night though. So once we were back over there this morning and in between opening up presents and watching others do likewise, I was working on the Buddy.

I finished it up just in time for Jenna to get it and go home for a nap and then on to the rest of her busy day with her mom. Dad works for ODOT and was off to sleep before going back on shift. Here she is showing that it was instant love for her Bunny Buddy:


Corbin and Kaisha also like their knitted gifts:




The ladies all loved their necklaces and the guys their hats and fingerless gloves - success! Speaking of fingerless gloves I had completed one for my dad and still needed to finish the other. I had planned to do that last night but the whole Bunny Buddy sidetracked its progress. When we got home this afternoon and after getting things settled back down, I sat down with it and got the second one done this evening - yea! They go down to my dad on Saturday:


I've decided that the two hats for the nephews are going to become books. They'll appreciate them more than the hats I think. Plus I'll actually be able to get out of my neighborhood to do the shopping!

Thus my dad's gloves officially ends the 2008 Holiday Knitting Frenzy! I did join the Christmas 2009 Monthly group. It starts out with doing ornament miniatures in January and lets me get those ones that I really hoped to get done this year done for next year, and ahead of time! I'll see how much of the KALs I'll be able to follow along with that line up with what I hope to make.

Friday I get to go back to spinning. I've missed it! A little break from knitting is in order I think before starting up in the new year.

Piggy Mittens All Done!

Finished up the second mitten of the second pair. Took photographs and everything. They're flashed but I don't know that I'll get good light tomorrow.

Here they are:




ETA: I forgot to mention that the light pink one was asked to be a pattern photo for the pattern designer. It's the number two photo for the design. (Ravelry pattern link, must be a member - sorry!) Here's her blog for other patterns.

Off to bed. Tomorrow will start work on the gloves for mom, but might throw in a hat for a change up. We'll see how it goes.

Keep warm and dry!

Second Pair in Progress & Snow!

I stayed up late last night reading/finishing a book, so was up late this morning. By the time I was up there was a nice coat of snow on the ground. It's pretty much been snowing most of the day. I think we probably have about four to six inches on the ground in places. We're all staying inside keeping warm. I've been watching movies and working on the Piggy Mittens Pair #2:


Earlier in the day I took a few photos of the yard, there's more snow now but you can get an idea of how the wind has been blowing:




Nessa and Norbert ventured out this morning while there was less snow. Norbert is a bit of a priss in regards to his toes and getting them wet/cold. We'll have to shove him out in a bit. Nessa went out and snuffled around in the snow and then shivered over the snow balls that accumulated in the feathers on her feet:



We were supposed to go over to Judy's and help decorate her tree. She likes having the grandkids help. With the snow we opted to stay home. I'll let Brandon borrow the Subaru to go to work tomorrow. I'm supposed to give a talk at one of the high schools and pick up niece Kaisha from school and watch her for an hour on Tuesday. It's supposed to get colder and more snow on Wednesday. It's going to be an interesting week!

One Pair Down, One to Go

Finished up the first pair of Piggy Mittens this afternoon. Just one more pair to go and they are done! I'm flipping the colors on the second pair to make them different, okay and because the light pink probably doesn't have enough to make a second pair.

Here they are:

Baby Love Blankets & Mittens or Gloves

I finished up the third and last Baby Love Blanket - yea! It came out well. It might just squeak in under the small blanket category but I used what I had on hand.


Here's Teddy sitting with all three of them casually arranged. I tried doing it during a brief clear-sunny sky moment but my batteries needed a recharge.


With the Baby Love blankets done I went back to working on the Piggy Mittens. I started out working them for a large child's hand and thought that looked too big. Ended up following the small child's pattern. Some of the directions assume that you have an actual child hand to measure/try on the mitten in progress, so a lot of guess work went into the creation. Again, I lost lighting so fluorescent and flash off, sorry about that:


Just have three more to make!

I was going to do a "driver's glove" for my mother but have heard its fiddly pattern instructions. I was resisting working on them. This means that I really didn't want to make them. So put aside that idea and found a different pattern and I'm sure things will go better. I had thought to do a version for William but he noticed the task list and started questioning design/color and so I'm not going to make them until he's ready for something like that. Honestly, makes my knitting list easier so I'm not going to complain!

Still have hopes to make some mini-ornaments before Christmas. Have the patterns already to go and sock yarns ready to be used. Just need to find the time of course. I also keep having thoughts of making sock blockers and SIP tubes. Those will most definitely end up having to wait until after the holiday unless a miracle happens.

Found out that we've been put in charge of organizing the 'kids' in what we'll be eating Christmas Eve. I decided that I'd do a crock pot of chicken curry, have one family group do the salad and toppings and the other group the munchies stuff, well we'll all share a bit in that but you know what I mean.