Whew!

Alright, so as you could tell from the last post, last week we played host to the Jersey fam. Always a good time. Always a bit crazy, and when you add in a holiday, blogging goes right out the window. So I will now spend a few days this week catching you up - although most of you were here for the craziness and therefore don't need a catch up... hmmm.... I'll assume that people not in my family still read the blog, and proceed accordingly.

So here's the quick round up of the week that was. Saturday - arrival, football, Wii Super Mario (surprisingly, the only game played on the Wii all week) Sunday - playground and family dinner, kids had some fun with Uncle Tom's covers. Monday - Farm Park (you already saw some pictures of these days). Tuesday - hung out at the house. Wednesday - I worked, they went downtown. Thursday - turkey and chaos. Friday - impromptu dance party to Christmas music after dinner. And then Saturday saw their departure. So here's a few more photos:
Making M&M cookies on Sunday. They were delicious.
Snuggle with the turkey, in an attempt to get a certain someone to nap. Fail.
If you embiggen that photo, you'll see Maddie's death look. She is the only one happy to see everyone gone.
The fam before they left.
Dance party!

Due to the fact that it's now the end of November, there has been a slew of finished knitting. Crazy finishing. I'll go into detail with a few now and save the rest for another day. Gotta spread out the blogging as I've recently been chastised for not blogging enough, again.

We'll continue with the cute kiddos helping me model a few things. First up, Master Charles helping with a hat, of which he has now requested a duplicate (the danger of enlisting a 5 year old as a model).
This is a Christmas present, so I won't show the whole thing, and I guess you'll be seeing another one eventually. Adorable though, right?
Sarah was gracious enough to help with Elizabeth's Christmas present. It matches the mittens I made for her last year. Looks so cute on Sarah, not so cute on me. Not sure if I'm a beret girl, hmm. Here's the shot of the hat itself:
The finished look makes the fair isle hassle so worth it. Next up, the Milkweed Shawl. The last time you saw this yarn, it was attempting, miserably, to be an Ishbel. No more. Garter stitch is happy.
Really great pattern, nice and quick and easy (how much do we love that?). And like I said, garter stitch! This is for Bridget for Christmas. I'm totally on the small triangle shawls as scarves kick right now. I love them!
Dresses up any outfit. Uses up sock yarn. People get to see it more than the socks. All good things, on top of the fact that the little bit of warmth is great right now. Speaking of small triangles for the neck...
I started a Lacy Baktus Thursday night (I needed something I didn't have to think about), and finished it Saturday. Yay fast pretty handspun project! I used my "Sweetheart" handspun that I spun up in August.
It still needs a light blocking, but I wore it around the house all day yesterday. Nice a squooshy. Warm, but not heavy. The yarn:
The fiber:
Alright, I think that's enough for today. One other piece of big news....

I HAVE LOST MORE THAN 50 LBS!!!!!!!! Officially. As of Saturday morning. Yay!!!! I can now wear the smaller jeans my sister got me for my birthday. And I'm within 15 lbs of goal weight. Tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of me starting WW, so I made my goal of 50 lbs in a year. To celebrate, I went out to Knitting on the Square, and was pleasantly surprised that the sale was still going on. So I got a few yarny treats for myself - better than foody treats!

So now I will leave you with the best sound of last week. Miss Sarah's giggles. Had to get it on video, we're not sure how long she'll continue to laugh like this. You can't help but laugh along.

Too busy to write

So I'll give you photos of what's been happening.


Even some knitting is being done.
More later, when I have more time for words.

Another Leaf Day

So, while I was writing the last post, the nephews and crew arrived in the neighborhood and commenced with the Big Leaf Day. Seriously, Margie has a lot of leaves. So, being the dutiful aunt that I am, I couldn't help but start snapping away:
They're all pretty self explanatory, I don't think captions are really needed. Alright, don't want to overload you on the cute, we'll move on to the boring. The knitting. Let's just get the orange out of the way first.
Yesterday I managed to work most of the foot at work. I was counting down the pumpkins I had left to work, which probably made it seem to take longer than it actually did. Just the toe left to do (yay!) which will probably get done today at work - hey, what else is there to do while sitting at 2 basketball practices?
Maddie gave her approval of the socks, and would like to get a bit more attention. She is very neglected after all.

I was wrong the other day about my Tapestry Cowl. I only worked 3 more rows (to finish the patterning) and then the border.
And then it was onto Kitchenering 220 stitches. 220. I know that most of my readers are non-knitters and really don't know what I'm talking about, but knitters - you will understand. 220 stitches. Oi. And at one point, I was seriously concerned that I hadn't left a long enough tail!
But all was well. And the cowl is great. I'll show a pic of me wearing it another day, so that you'll know that if I had done the 20 more rows that the pattern called for, it would have covered my entire face.

And now for a new project. After the cowl was done, I needed something new. So I started a hat:
Looks like a hat doesn't it? Ellie was most confused - but she was highly distracted by the fact that her fantasy players weren't getting her enough points (haha - she didn't check her roster and had a player and her defense on bye!). Anyway, that's what it looked like Sunday night. By Monday afternoon, it looked like this:
More hat-like right? Very interesting construction. By Tuesday afternoon, it looked like this:
Yay, done hat! Boo, it's too big. So Ellie might be getting this one. It's very soft and I'm sure crazy warm (50/50 wool/llama will do that). The Cascade Pastaza probably wasn't the best choice of yarn - it's such an in between weight. It's listed as Aran, but definitely works more like a chunky or bulky. I'll probably make another one of these, but with different yarn, and hopefully it will fit me. Oh yeah, the pattern is Quincy from the Made in Brooklyn booklet.

Another new knit, is a Christmas gift. But Bridget doesn't read the blog, so I can show it. Soon, there won't be much that I'll be able to show so I should get it in now.
That's the start of an Ishbel. That is soon to be ripped out. Confession time: What I hate about my knitting. I hate that I have bad tension between my knits and purls. (Enough with the weird knitting jargon already!) Let me show you.
See those wonky stitches? That's what's causing most of the puckering in the first picture. Yeah, that doesn't go away with blocking. Basically what needs to happen is that when I re-do this, one needle needs to be smaller than the other so that the stitches will end up being the same size. And the finished object will be pretty. And I will be happy. Yes I am a perfectionist when it comes to little things like this. I can control it, therefore I can be obsessive. You'll see it again, and it will be pretty.