I fought the yarn…and the yarn won.

It has been well documented that when a knitter is faced with the possibility of running out of yarn, said knitter will knit faster in the hopes of out-racing the yarn to the end.

It does not always work out.

This week, I knit faster than I, in my meager experience, have ever knit, finishing 2/3 of a sock in 2 days. This involved desk knitting, lunch knitting, train knitting, sitting-up-in-bed knitting, knitting elbow, sore fingers…and alas. Defeat. (Or, since we speak of socks, should I say de-feet? Heh.)

The battle was lost. The yarn beat me.

Thankfully, Jen from Woolgirl is my new BFF and has come to my rescue with a 1/2 skein of leftover yarn so that I can finish the socks. (As an aside, I wonder – why can’t life behave more like this? For example, when it appears you will surely run out of gas before you get to where you are going, wouldn’t it be swell to mention it to your car and have the gas tank adjust accordingly? Do you see what I’m getting at?)

Oh, and I can give you no other pictures of the socks. They are a secret. (Also, my camera battery has died a sudden and complete death.)

In other news, I wish a hearty good luck to my NY Giants. Eli, prove your Manning-hood.

That is all.

Holiday Knitting Round-Up Part 1: The N’oreasters

For as long as I can remember, my family has spent Christmas with some cousins on my Dad’s side. Now we kids are all grown up, and sit at the adult table. (As an aside, I managed to point out that this meant our parents were sitting at the senior adult table. Har.) I still live in Atlanta, but the cousin children have all moved away to the chilly Northeast, so I love the holidays every year where we get to catch up.

The New Hampshire cousins spend a lot of time outdoors, so I wanted to make hats for them. For the boy, I chose – wait for it – The Boy Hat, which I found on Ravelry, and fell in love with because of the crown decrease. So cool. I used Cascade 220 Heathers and size, er, 7 needles, maybe?

Ravelry link
For the girl, I went with Foliage in Malabrigo worsted, colorway Dark Earth, size 5 and 7 needles as directed in the pattern. For the record, the hype on Malabrigo? ‘Tis true. Also, the pattern – very excellent. I have made one of the bulky variety as well for another friend.

Ravelry Link
The NYC Cousin is a classically trained vocalist, honing his skills in the Big Apple. He also tunes organs, and I thought he might need some fingerless gloves to help him stay warm and still have the dexterity he needs. First I tried Dashing, but my row gauge was ridiculous just a smidge off, so they ended up reaching to my elbow without really stretching. Evidence:

Not quite the look I was going for, so I scrapped that idea and jumped on Knitspot’s Hot Waffle Mitts with some Cascade 220 Heathers.

Ravelry Link
This turned out much, much better. They are a little big on my hands, but fit my cousin perfectly (I hope he’s getting some good wear out of them with the recent cold blast!). Anne’s pattern is super – well written and quick (I’m planning to make myself a pair with the matching hat very, very soon).

As usual, it was great to see them at Christmas, and I so enjoyed making these gifts for them – I hope you guys are enjoying using them just as much!

For When we need a comfort shawl the most…

But when the Sun in all his state
Illumed the Eastern skies,
She passed through Glory’s morning gate
And walked in Paradise.
-Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Last Friday afternoon, after a life in which she loved us all as hard as she could, my Grandmother passed away.

Words fail to express how I will I miss her.

 

 

*Project details and other photos of the shawl in this picture can be found on Ravelry here.  I finished it for her for Christmas, not quite one month before she died.

In which I remember the blog.

It has come to my attention that I have a blog.  It has also come to my attention that said blog has not been updated in, oh, roughly 4 months.  Woops!

I blame many things.  First there was buying my first house (stress) and moving into that house (stress).  That ran right into the holidays, and as a result of the moving messing with my holiday knitting schedule, my holiday knitting schedule messed with my blogging.  And then, you know, the great time-suck Ravelry. 

But now I’m moved, unpacked, done with holiday knitting (almost), and starting to normalize, I’ll try and get back to the business of entertaining you all with tales of stash enhancing, startitis, late-night finishing, and so forth. There have also been several FO’s, which I will get to in a series of Holiday Knitting Round-Ups. However, in the event that you are in Ravelry and positively cannot wait a moment longer to see them, they are updated here http://www.ravelry.com/projects/joymichelle.

If you’re not in the Rave, here’s some proof that I actually did knit while I was on blogging hiatus:

These are knit in the Moorish Lattice stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks, knit for the lovely Gale.  Yarn is Reynolds Soft Sea Wool, knit on Size 2 bamboo dpn’s.  Backdrop is my new backyard.

On that note, I wish you all a Happy New Year, friends ~ here’s to an amazing 2008 for all!