10 years, 24 weeks, 28 days 'til Christmas

In the spirit of being thankful . . .

Today marks 10 years of marriage. With all its ups and downs, it has been a great decade.
This is the 24th week of my second pregnancy--so far so good :)
With 28 days to go, I ordered the perfect Christmas gift for my husband today. It took me less than 2 minutes on the phone, it will not take up any space or gather dust in my house, and it was on sale (bonus, bonus, bonus).

I am thankful for my family, my current state of good health, and the fact that I have access to everything I could possibly need (and more).

We are looking forward to a few days off before tackling the spare (soon to be occupied) room. The paint has been purchased, now to get cracking!

Photographer's Prop Hats

Well here are some projects that came and went so quick I haven't even posted them on Ravelry yet.

I have a friend who is a family/child photographer. Some time in the past we had talked about hats that she could use with babies during her shoots. I promised to make her some cute hats, as I had seen some posted on Ravelry. Her request was that the yarn was "pretty" and machine washable. Hmmmm, lots of pretty yarn, but not so much of it machine washable.

After a bit of looking around I found a yarn that I liked--Sidar's Big Softie--purchased at my localest LYS, less than a mile from my house. I actually purchased this yarn for another, yet to be blogged, project--but that was a gift for someone, who I believe is a reader, so I will wait until she receives it before I show it off.

One of these little hats was clearly inspired by the hat I saw on Ravelry. One of them, I must have subconsciously remembered--I thought I had a unique inspiration to make it, but when I checked the patterns of the original prop hat there was one similar. One of them is a basic hat, all my own, but undoubtable made by generations of other knitters.

Here they are:

Playful Pompom

Pretty Petals

Plain Vanilla

I will write up and post the pattern for plain vanilla--though you can probably take a look at it an figure it out. Meanwhile, I will be checking my friend's site (Traci McCabe Photography) to see if she has had a chance to use the hats. If you live anywhere near Westford, MA, and are interested in having portraits taken, especially of children, take a look at her site. I think she does lovely stuff.

Ishbel

I became obsessed with Ishbel a few weeks ago--and I just had to knit it.

I used the Alpaca Sox that I bought last year (I think) in hopes of making actual socks. Since I have lost my sock mojo, I decided over the summer to make a scarf. I can't even remember the pattern I was making--but it was a Knitty pattern that I believe actually called for this yarn (maybe)--but I got a migraine while doing it, and it just totally put me off the pattern. Never even took a picture--we were traveling at the time. I balled it up and put it away, and I'm pretty sure I did not even knit for the rest of the trip (weird, right?).

Then I just needed to make Ishbel. So out came the Alpaca Sox, and I think it was perfect. I have no pictures of me wearing it, though I have worn it around the house.

Needle

US 6 / 4.0 mm

Yarn

Classic Elite Yarns Alpaca Sox

How much?

0.82 skeins = 369.0 yards (337.4m)

I did a large stockinette section and a small lace section, adding beads to the D chart.

Here it is blocking.

This was made in exactly two weeks! I am considering making one for my Mom. She seemed to really like mine, and I have plenty of nice fingering weight yarn just lying around.

Phat Fibers

It has been so long since I had time to write anything that the next set of Phat Fibers boxes have been sold and probably received by some. But I will post some pictures and talk a bit about what I got.

Here is what I found when I opened the box. The theme was masquerade--and I did wear my mask for the trick or treaters (all 5 of them) on Halloween.

Inside the box was a lovely assortment of fibers and some handspun yarns with a good amount of glitz.

The most substantial amount of fiber came from Desired Haven Farm--at the top right of the picture. It is wool, but I'm not sure what type. All it says is Batt made from Simi my black ewe. Plenty of glitz mixed in with this one. Most of the other samples were quite small, just enough to get a feel for the fiber, I guess. Something like 0.25 oz.

There was a good amount of merino fiber in an assortment of pretty colors, but I've had a go at spinning merino and I was hoping for some more variety--and I did get it.

Alisha goes around included some lovely blue merino/bamboo blend. Polyartgirl sent in some mauve 100% bamboo. Anzula send in some natural black, brown and gray alpaca. Dragonmaille sent in some milk fiber--interesting. Rule out: Fiber addiction, NOS send some superwash corriedale--in the color Pavarti Patil--pinks! The Sheepy Kitty sent some BFL, in a color called crushed velvet--lovely aubergines.

Of the yarns, the samples were just enough for a small swatch. Of the yarns there was some merino, and alpaca, but the two I particularly liked were blends. Mama Jude sent in some 50%wool/50% silk that had a lovely sheen (and color). Lampyridae sent 70% alpaca/20% cashmere/10% silk in a laceweight that was just beautiful--pinky browns--and ridiculously soft.

The box also held some non-fiber items (other than the mask). My favorite was a pad of graphing paper, but very special graphing paper. Each "square" is actually a knit stitch, with all the right dimensions, so you can create a pattern on your knit graph paper and really know what it will look like. Very cool. This KnitStitch Graph paper came from gingerbunny.com. There was also a beautiful, large, ceramic button from heartstone ceramics that can be used as an accent on a hat or one large button closure at the top of a cardigan

Now that I know what all the fuss is about I will probably hold off ordering another box for a while. I hope to get around to trying some of these fibers and deciding if I'd like to get to know them a little better. I'll let you know how it goes.

Interweave

Not much blogging recently--though I have been knitting and I do have some FOs to post--just don't have the time (or the photos to do it at the moment).

On a bit of a rant. . .
I opened up my Knitting Daily just now to find that they are trying to sell me another magazine (hey, I thought only Tues and Thurs were for useless advertising). This one is Interweave accessories. Well I bought the Weekend issue (as a impulse), and found nothing jumping out at me and this weekend I bought the Holiday issue, and found nothing exciting. Damned if I will be buying the accessory issue, unless I see a whole bunch of good stuff in there.

They still get my money--I still subscribe, and clearly I've been buying these extra issues, but I'm feeling let down. I know their job is to make enough money to keep things going, pay the bills, etc. But I'm just not feeling the Interweave vibe.