Year-end roundup

Annual Christmas merriment with our families are done for another year. It's amazing how quickly the kids are growing and becoming their own personalities. The Dork had fun with his cousins, playing with his camera and trying to corral all the young cousins.

Mom/Aunt Kathy, do you have to take our pictures?! We really hate it when you do! Are you done yet? Teenagers!

There was lots of eating involved! The Hat is one of our favorite places to go, and not just because there is pastrami. The Dork managed, barely, to finish a Pastrami Burger.

 

Enormous portions were consumed. We've learned to share sandwiches and only ask for one order of onion rings.

 

 

 

There was rapid consumption of a wonderful bread pudding souffle at the Palace Grill in Santa Barbara. We've been going there for more than 20 years. Yum!

Oh yes, there has been knitting -  but only one holiday project. I've finished 2 scarves:

Horizontal Rib Scarf (from One More Skein by Leigh Radford)
Mirasol Nuna, 1.3 skeins, approx. 5" x 70" long
Size US 6 needles
Started Dec. 20, finished Dec. 23

Still needs blocking before I can gift it

Another Scrunchable Scarf, a great mindless knitting pattern, each row is the same.

Mirasol K'acha, 3 skeins

Approximately 5"x54"

Size US 8 needles

Started August 28, finished Dec. 28

Socks! 2x2 rib, toe-up, Fleegle heel

Regia Galaxy Saturn, ~ 265 yards (60 grams of the 100 gram ball)

Size US 0 needles

Started August 22, finished Dec. 30

And I started a hat for The Hubby in Cascade's Lana d'Oro paints. I was trying to get it done before midnight, but changed my mind about the pattern and ripped back a couple inches. It should be my first FO of 2010.

Final tally for the year - 23 projects, using just over 12,500 yards of yarn. That's over 3K more yards than I used last year!

3 baby blankets

7 scarves

3 pairs of socks

2 hats

1 crocheted doily

1 pair fingerless gloves

4 shawls (only 1 was lace)

2 sweaters

For this new year, I'm participating in the UFO Smackdown started by Nathania. I will be ripping out a few projects to reclaim the yarn, but this should motivate me to finish 10 UFOs that have been laying around or hiding from me this year. I may discover a few more, but at least 10 will be finished before 2011.

Here's to a wonderful 2010. I hope your New Year brings you and your family much happiness and health and fun!

Hi there!

Hey, remember me? The one who kept saying she would be posting more? Riiiigggghhhht!
But I have an excuse! Really, I do, honest!

I've been busy ... KNITTING! Gasp! You don't believe me? Well, here's proof:

Pink Ruffles scarf
Pattern: Just enough ruffles
Yarn: Malabrigo worsted, color: Molly (about 1.2 skeins)
Needle: US size 9
Started: Dec. 29, 2008
Finished: Dec. 30, 2008 (which brings my total for 2008 to 20 finished objects)



Zig-zag scarf
Pattern: Malabrigo keyhole scarf (pdf file)
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, color: Happy Valley (about .85 skein)
Needle: US size 9
Started: Dec. 31, 2008
Finished: Jan. 1, 2009

Gretel hat
Pattern: Gretel by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Lion Brand Woolease
Needle: US size 7
Started: Jan. 5, 2009
Finished: Jan. 11, 2009

I was so cold, even inside my house, that I had to make myself a hat. Right. Now. So I pulled out some stash yarn (hooray for shopping within your stash) and immediately cast on. May I say, Ysolda's tubular cast-on technique is brilliant (even though I had to do it 3 times to get a reasonable looking piece). Of course, when I finished the hat a week later, the temperatures had shot up into the mid-70's during the day (in January...) - so much for being cold!

Here's a piece of charity knitting that made its recipient known to me, (ala Alison). I got the yarn (Lion Brand Watercolors - discontinued) at the latest yarn swap at Purlescence. It's super bulky and I cast on 15 stitches for a garter stitch, knit until all 3 balls are used type of scarf, figuring that there's always someone who needs a warm fuzzy scarf. Then I found out via Ravelry's Charity Knitting group about the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The pancreatic cancer fundraising color is purple. A fellow Raveler is selling purple scarves to raise money to raise awareness and find a cure for this fast-moving disease. In honor of my sister-friend's mother, this scarf will be going towards this cause. And I think (wink, wink ;-) that I have just a little more purple yarn in the stash that can be used...


Oh yeah, there's another pair of vanilla toe-up socks on the needles in STR Peaseblossom. Yup, the one that I used for the failed Monkey socks back in June. See the difference? One needle size and fewer stitches totally changed the striping and I like it a lot better. The colors are truer in the left picture however.


Did I tell you about the Ju-san Luna shawl kit (Ravelry link)I won from Purlescence? No, I guess I didn't... In their end-of-year raffle, my Dork pulled my name out of the bowl to win this kit of Claudia mohair and ribbon yarns. It's so pretty and very warm! It is destined to be an auction item for a Winter Camp that The Hubby attends.




I got about 15 rows of the Ju-san Luna done while at a fencing tournament yesterday. The Dork was, once again, thiiiis close to earning an epee rating, but lost his direct elimination bout by only a couple points. He placed 10th/37 (top 8 earned ratings). This particular competition was excruciatingly long; we were there from 2:30 until 9 pm so I got lots of knitting time. Just because I could, I took my new Mino and took some video of him (he's on the left). I really like the overall quality of the Mino, and love the fact that it's purse-sized and ready to whip out at a moment's notice! I also figured out how to upload videos to YouTube and embed them here.

The Dork asked me to mention that when the fencers get too close to each other, sometimes the referee calls a halt to reposition them on the strip. They actually have to poke each other and depress the tip of their weapon (in this case, epee; the entire body is considered a target) in order to register a touch/point. Sometimes they hit the wall or floor, which doesn't count.

Off to knit some more!