Can't share what I'm doing....

I wish I could share my current projects as I'm quite excited about a few things I've got going, but they're all Christmas presents for people who do, on occasion, read this blog. There's gonna be a big, picture-filled post coming after the holidays, I can tell.

However, I did find a really bad holiday-related pun I can share:

I had a nightmare that I was in Panama during a snowstorm.
I was dreaming of a white isthmus.

Ouch, bad, I know, but I just couldn't help myself. I found this wonderful bad pun site and I've been giggling to myself all afternoon. My Dad starts pun wars from time to time, and I'm usually too busy laughing at my Dad's, DH's, and my sister's witty (but often bad) puns to participate.

I'll spare you any more bad puns. If you're a glutton, you can go check out that site yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Snow

We got socked by a rain/sleet/snow storm, but the kids have loved it! They cancelled school yesterday, and today schools, as well as a lot of stores, were closed.

I have a lot of pictures to post but for some reason Blogger won't let me! There are no buttons at the top of the window like there usually are, so hopefully pics will be coming later....



Sunday, December 3rd...

K, now that Blogger's temper tantrum seems to be over, I'll continue with this post.

Here's Gillian throwing a snowball Thursday afternoon, during the storm...

Look at those really cold, red noses! They're both wearing their crappy acrylic store-bought gloves that didn't keep their little finger warm AT ALL once they got wet.


They're pretty happy anyway, though.

And I got them to stand next to each other and pose on Friday afternoon. It was sunny but still really cold.


These are some mittens I finished last night (which would be Saturday night).

They're Ryan's, and they got field tested today. He loves them! I'm so happy that both kids like their mittens. No more cold fingers here.

I managed to get Gillian's finished Friday night so that she could wear them Saturday and she loved them. Isn't it wonderful when people love what you make for them?

The yarn for both pairs of mittens is KnitPicks Swish, which totally rocks! I think it's my new favorite yarn. It's really soft, 100% machine-washable wool. I see more of this yarn in my future.

Late birthday present

My Mother-in-Law (hi, Vickey!) sent me a very generous gift card for my birthday, so I decided to use it to buy books! Books, of almost any kind, are a great weakness of mine. They hold so much knowledge and so many new ideas! The librarians at my local branch of the public library know me (and sometimes hate me, I'm sure). Right now I have 23 books checked out and 17 waiting for me that I've requested from other branches. The Tulsa City-County Library system is absolutely incredible!! I can go online and search the catalog, then request a book and when it's available they'll bring it to the library location I specify! It's a truly fabulous thing. [O.K., not all of the 23 books are mine, 10 are my kids' books.]


Back to the gift card, I've just used it to purchase four books I've been wanting for a long time:

The Sweater Workshop is a really good book--I didn't really like it until I started reading it, then I had to make the sweater sampler (also known as The Thing) and I learned so much! I highly recommend this book for any novice knitter, and even intermediate knitters. I'd consider myself an intermediate- to intermediate/advanced-level knitter, and I still want this book for a reference. My library system doesn't have it, so I've gotten it through inter-library loan, but this is a book I want in my personal library.

Subversive Cross Stitch is probably the only cross-stitching I'll do for a long time. Yes, some of the designs are quite rude, but I just love the irony of having those cutesy/fancy/girly borders, then something rude paired with it. I'll probably never make some of the ones with profanity (having two little kids in the house and all) but I can see making some of the slightly rude ones. It's gonna be fun!

I've heard good things about Mary Thomas' books, and this one looks like it'll be a good one. I've never actually had my hands on a copy so I'm looking forward to it. I love collecting stitch patterns!

Victorian Lace Today has many of the lace knitting lists all excited, and I can't wait to get it in my hot little hands.

Of course I should be working on the projects I've got started already, but I can't be monogamous to any one project--I have to have a few different ones going of varying skill levels. Right now I've got a super-secret project that's mindless knitting but I've designed myself into a corner, so that's going to be a challenge; the Hanging Garden Stole is currently stalled since I messed up purling back and haven't had a chance to site down uninterrupted and figure out where the problem occurred; the Rose of England shawl is stalled because of Christmas knitting, but I'm itching to get back to it; and I just cast on for yet another hat. However, I did pull a hat off the needles and re-wound the yarn since I just wasn't liking it. Not sure what I'll do with the yarn--it's Red Heart variegated and really scratchy. I washed another hat using the same yarn and it softened up a little, but not enough to be used as a chemo cap. I might end up giving the rest of the skein away since I've got more yarn that's more suitable for chemo caps.

Of course, instead of blogging or playing on the computer I should be either cleaning, doing housework, or knitting, but oh well--it'll all still be there in a little while. :-)

I'm sitting here listening to the rather miserable weather outside. It got really dark at around 3:00 this afternoon, like almost-night-time dark, and the wind has been blowing for a while. This morning when I took Gillian to school it was in the low 70s, and over the course of the day I've watched the temperature drop and it's now 33 degrees outside! It's been raining and is supposed to snow late tonight, so we'll have a wonderful coating of ice covered by snow. Woo hoo! Not.

I'm halfway hoping they cancel school tomorrow, but DS has a doctor's appointment on the other side of town and we won't be missing that! It won't be fun getting there or back home, but we'll just have to be careful. I think it's going to be a good day to stay inside and do housework knit.

Working hard, but no pics

I'm working on Christmas gifts, so I'm not going to post pictures of those until after the holidays.
I've got quite a bit going but I feel like I'm fairly close to finishing most of the projects, and on time even!

I still haven't figured out what to make for neighbor gifts this year although I'm leaning toward something like a cheese ball and cracker assortment (Rori, will you teach me?). Mmmmmm. Many of my neighbors are older and some are diabetic, so I don't want to make cookies and sweets. I probably will make some anyway, but I like salty things, too.

I did another chemo cap and this one will go to Caps with a Conscience. Once I get the ends woven in, that is! Here's a picture of my hat:

I adapted the design from a design I saw on a sweater in a J.C. Penny's advertisement, although I double you'd recognize it if you saw the original. Yes, the yarn is a strong coral color. It's not quite deer-hunter orange, but it's bright. This was the yarn from Leisure Arts and Bernat that they sent if you emailed them. I'm not sure if they're still doing it or not, but click here for the link. The yarn is very soft, called Bernat Satin. I'm not sure about the colors, but it seems to be very similar to Caron Simply Soft (which is the white yarn in my hat, since I didn't have enough yarn left to do the entire hat). I used part of the skein to make a Diagonal Rib Hat but it came out too small, so I sent it to a different chemo hat campaign.

This hat is Rori's that she crocheted:

Both hats went out today in the mail, just barely--I managed to catch the postman after he'd come to our mailbox and was going down the other side of the street. One more thing checked off my list of things to do! Now I can add two more, right? ;-)

Magic Loop, diagonal rib, and MORE bathroom stuff

This is a quick post about using the Magic Loop method, an alternative to double-point needles or the two-circular method.

Begin as you usually would, casting on the necessary number of stitches. In this case, I cast on 20.

Next, move the stitches down onto the cable and pull out a loop of cable at approximately the half-way point. I cast on 20 stitches then pulled out the loop between the 10th and 11th stitches.


Next, slide the stitches up so that both needles have loops on them. Note that the working yarn is coming from the right needle.


Now pull the right needle up so that the stitches are on the cable. You're now in working position. Bring the yarn up and begin knitting, using the stitches on the left needle tip.

Here I've worked four stitches, and you can see the loops (I like to think of them as ears, for some strange reason) on either side of the work.


At this point I've finished working the stitches on the left needle, and now I need to bring the needles back into working position.


I'll bring the right needle tip up and out of the stitches so that they're on the cable...




Then bring the tip of the right needle back up into working position. You can see the loop forming on the right side.

On a not-really-related subject, I've been having fun with my Diagonal Rib Hat (see sidebar for pattern). As the pattern progresses, the stitch marker—and the beginning of the round—move one stitch to the left every other round. So although the actual knitting doesn't change its position on the needles, the marker moves around. I took a picture, because for some reason this amuses me. [I know, I know, no comments from the peanut gallery, please. Those of you who know me will realize I am very easily amused.]

The needle is at the original start of the round, so you can see how the stitch marker has moved with each pattern repeat. For those of you with a fair bit of knitting experience, you're probably going "huh? WHY is this a big deal?" but I thought it might throw some beginners and was worth mentioning.

And here are two pictures of the magic loop in action on my latest Diagonal Rib hat:

After finishing the stitches on the left needle (above), and starting the next half of the round (below).

Hopefully someone will find this helpful!

We're nearing the end of the bathroom project. Today we hung towel bars, which was quite exciting! ROFL

Here's a picture of the medicine cabinet installed. It was totally bizarre to walk in there and not have a mirror. I kept thinking my eyes were wonky.

Please ignore the little bits of burgundy around the vanity. Those are going to go away. Very soon. That's the old paint color. If you can imagine, the LIGHT FIXTURE HAD BEEN PAINTED BURGUNDY when we moved in!!! The previous owners really should not have been allowed near paint. I took down the light and got some really nifty "hammered metal" spray paint. Poof! Burgundy light fixture gone! That stuff is way awesome. We also used it on some old hinges in the other bathroom and so far they've held up pretty well.

So now all we have to do is get new baseboard, paint it, install it, do some touch-up painting, fix two broken tiles on the floor, and install some crown molding. And then those of you who are tired of reading about my bathroom remodel won't have to be in agony any more. ;-)