Thursday, December 31, 2009

Good Bye 2009

The last day of the year. I am getting the things done that I wanted to accomplish. DH's scarf is done, the red sweater for Jordyn is done, washed and blocked. I'm sewing in the zipper on the old blue sweater that is still going strong. That should be done tonight.

Then I will start on some projects I had put aside to get Christmas knitting done.

Weight Watchers meeting today. Not too bad. Weight gain of only 1 pound during the two weeks of Christmas eating. Time to get back on track.

Mass later this afternoon. It is almost balmy with temperatures in the mid 30's.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Post Christmas

Christmas has come and gone and this is what's left! It was lovely and confusing and lots of work but a good time was had by all, so the work and the worry are worth it.
So now DH and I have a lovely week of just being! The kids are home with their father, so a full no kids week!
I cleaned my knitting /sewwing/craft room, putting all the magazines and books I had lying around, on the bookshelves. I put all the projects I had bookmarked on my queue in Ravelry. I will do the same thing with my yarn, although that is really more organized.

In the waning days of 2009, I want to accomplish a few things: finish DH's Christmas scarf, finish the red sweater that was originally planned for grandaughter #1 when she was 4, and give it to grandaughter #4 before she gets too big for it, replace the zipper in an old blue sweater that the girls love, and finish Stephen King's new book "Under the Dome" It has 1072 pages. Seriously he better have something worthwhile to say on all those pages. So far (400 pages in) it is pretty good.

It has been a little stormy here, but since we have no place to go we didn't even realize there was a major storm with driving problems yesterday until we turned on the news!

Very cold (8 degrees F) . I'm going to make some Bean and Roasted Garlic soup and Dilly bread for dinner tonight.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Christmas is Getting Closer

We had the best weekend with the kids!



Nathan and Jordyn (and Mia) slept over on Saturday night and we did all kinds of Christmasy stuff.
Finished decorating the little tree and put the train around it, made the graham cracker village, the best one yet. Notice the teeny, tiny gingerbread boys playing in the village?
We made gingerbread boys and had loads of fun decorating them in our own strange way. Mia and Frankie had a great time playing and running outside.



When Mia left on Sunday, Frankie was comatose for the rest of the day. So were Nana and Papa!


Just have some marathon Christmas cookie making to do and I'm all ready for Christmas!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Just Finish It, Already!




Why do we put things off? Little things that really don't take much time. Usually the big things get done but the little nagging things just sit there and mock you.

Last night I decided to dive in and finish a couple of those little things.

Had already done the big things through the day. Trees up, meat sauce with braciole cooked, filling for the cucidati (Italian fig cookies) all ground up and soaking up the whiskey fumes.

So when I put on the water for pasta for dinner, I took out the Who? hats and one 2x2 ribbed hat that were done but needed the ends tucked. These hats had been sitting there mocking me for weeks waiting for me to finish them up. It took me until the pasta water started to boil to get them finished!

The grafting of the last sock for DD#1 which had been completed 2 weeks ago? When the pasta was done cooking, so was the grafting. 7 minutes, exactly!

I also cast on the last of the 2x2 ribbed hats. I was working on them and the 2x2 ribbed socks at the same time and I felt as if all the will to knit was being drained from me. Yes, it's easy. Yes, you could practically do it in your sleep, but when that is all you're doing it seems like it will never be over.

So before I lost what little sanity I still possess, I cast on DH's alpaca scarf and let the last of the ribbed hats wait. That alpaca scarf, by the way, is like knitting butta! So soft and beautiful.

The snowstorm last Wednesday and Thursday, didn't give us more that 2 or 3 inches of snow. The winds and low temps had the kids home from school on Thursday, so the boys picked up the trees and did they pick well this year. We also made a batch of cutout cookies and watched Christmas movies. Good times!

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

One of These Things is Not Like the Other



My Christmas knitting is humming right along, even though I keep adding to it. I finished the Who? hats for the girls (6hats) and am making 2x2 ribbed hats for the boys (3 hats). There is a special hat for the littlest boy which I think we may be able to keep on his head (he has a definite hat bias) but I haven't received the yarn yet, so that may be an after Christmas gift.




I was knitting on the plain socks for DD#1 in my time spent waiting for the littlest schoolgirl. One was finished and sized when we were in WV, the other one just gets worked on periodically. I reached the heel, which was a dark gray patch of yarn when I came upon a knot in the yarn. I haven't made a whole lot of socks, but I have never had a ball of sock yarn with a knot. I spliced it together and continued knitting the foot until I got to a point where I needed to measure against the other sock for length.Notice anything? Yup! My self striping sock yarn was not striping right. I have been very successful at making identical rather than fraternal twins out of my other sock yarn and was not going fail on this one. I pulled out lengths of yarn, vainly trying to find the right stripping pattern. After much thought and deliberation it became clear. When the ball was knotted together they had put the new yarn on backwards, the opposite stripping pattern.


I gave it a little more thought. Should I rewind the ball? Throw them in the garbage? Call the company and make them knit me a new sock?


I finally ripped it back to the gray heel and took the yarn from the OUTSIDE of the ball, which matched up perfectly.

Just have to graft the toe and these can go in the Christmas box.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Snow Days

Forgot to post this . On December 1st we had the first measurable snow of the Winter 2009-2010 season. We had 237 days without snow which was the longest snowless stretch in 61 years. Today there is lake effect snow warnings until 10pm.