Knitting, mostly

Lots of knitting, as I said before. There seems to be a few themes to my knitting too, see if you can guess what they are.

Finished objects first I think. First FO of 2011 was.....
A slouchy Sixburgh hat. That's right, the colorway of the yarn (which is from Destination Yarns) is "Sixburgh" - for those of you who aren't die-hard fans it's a combination of Pittsburgh and the six Superbowls that the Steelers have won. It's wonderful and comfy - just ask Mom, she wore it all day on Saturday. I knit this up while waiting for yarn to arrive to make this hat:
It's a reverse engineered version of a hat that was first seen during October - Breast Cancer Awareness month - and the gold was replaced with that hot pink the NFL used this year. However, I like the gold better. I could have bought one of these hats, but why when I can knit one?

Photos were taken on Saturday, and I finally got a shot of me wearing my Steelers Pink sweater.
Because the Christmas jersey still has not been found, that was my outfit for gameday. Are you seeing the theme yet? Let me help, here are two little guys I finished during the game (except for the teeth, I did that later):
Meet Heath and Hines. Leftover Sixburgh yarn got used for Heath, and then I had a stroke of brilliance when I decided to make Hines' hat look like the fade hats I made last year. There is a third little hooligan in the works, Troy will be his name, but the game wasn't going the way I wanted, so I stopped, and guess what, the Steelers won. So yeah, maybe a little superstitious, maybe. Just a little. But the little guy should be done by the game this week, that's my plan anyway. They're just so cute and fun!

One more FO, this one is to replace poor King Arthur.
Pattern is Daphne and Delilah. Have you guessed the second theme? yeah, i might be a bit hung up on these patterns for little monsters - they're so cute and quick, and I can't help it, they make me smile. Good thing I've got plenty of kiddos to make stuff for.

Onto the works in progress. I showed the Delancey cardigan before, here's the progress:
It's going really quickly, considering that I don't work on it that much. And I'm still head over heels for it. That's the right front done, now I'm working on the center back, and should be able to get the body of the sweater done this month. Woot!

Last Sunday i did finally go see the new Harry Potter movie (Mom and Dad went too), which renewed my enthusiasm for the Hermione sweater:
It's finally starting too look like it's the one from the movie! There have been some questions/discussions on the increases and how to do them and where and the numbers, so it's on hold for a little while to make sure that it's right and I don't have to rip it out. That would make me sad.

And then there's a shawl, a pretty little thing (even though it mostly looks like a wonky jellyfish at the moment) that I haven't blogged and now it's basically done.
The Whippoorwill, which I've wanted to do for a while. Really pretty, and super simple. Had some issues with the yarn overs - the pattern was written to do them a very specific way to make them even on both sides, and let's just say that it didn't work out for me. So it's my way. But there it is, all done except for binding off. Then it's on to sewing in the ends and blocking.

That's the last theme of my knitting this month - crazy number of ends to weave in. Seriously, I might have to take a few hours before the end of the month just to weave in the ends on the 2 sweaters, just to make working on them a little easier, sometimes the ends annoy me and get in the way.

New Year

Onto 2011. New Year's Eve was good, Notre Dame won their bowl game, and then we celebrated with the kids after dinner. We went out to the driveway for sparklers and poppers.
Of course we were properly attired with hats and tiaras!
Sparklers are fun, even if to a 3 year old they're a bit scary at first.
The family shot.
And one of the few pictures of me from the whole week. Like I said, the week was fun, and loud, and crazy and busy, but really good. New Year's day, I watched some football, and started some new knits, before heading over to Bridget's for dinner and games with Kaylee. Sunday, the Steelers beat up on the Browns and locked into the playoffs (woohoo!), then Monday it was back to work. Games this week, Tuesday and Wednesday night for basketball, and starting today we're hosting a double hockey tournament - double woohoo! So this weekend will be a bit insano. Been getting lots of knitting done though, which is awesome.
Except that I've stalled out on the sleeves of the Vaila sweater. Seriously, I know I've complained before, but purling in the round - oy! They're about halfway done, and I've been distracted by all the new pretties, which is very bad of me. Oh well, it'll get done eventually.

Onto the new stuff, which is way more exciting.
That is the start of the Delancey Cardigan. Very interesting construction, hard to see how it all works out to be a straight edge, but it does. The yarn is awesome, it's KnitPicks Capra, which has a bit of cashmere that just makes it yummy. I've actually had to force myself to put this down and work on other stuff.
Like the start of this sweater, it's a design by a pal on Ravelry, that is based off of the sweater that Hermione wears in the new HP movie (that I still haven't seen, but told mom that we should plan on going this Sunday). That's just the hood, it gets more exciting later. And I'm actually about 12" in now, just about done with the hood, but I was too lazy to take more pictures today.

I've got 2 other projects I've started this week, but I'll save those for next week. I'm trying to be better about blogging a little more regularly, we'll see how it goes. And like I said, I'm too lazy to take new pictures. But I do have a bit of sad news to report.
King Arthur has passed on. Miss Aubrey did a botched decapitation job on him on Christmas Eve. He is now Nearly Headless Arthur. I obviously need to be a little more childproof when making toys - but I've got plans. Have a good weekend!

Christmas Recap

I know we've moved into 2011 already, but I can't completely skip all the best parts of Christmas 2010. So I'll do a recap. Christmas Eve was our traditional affair with lasagna for dinner and then Midnight Mass (though Mass is at 10 now instead, which is still goofy to me) followed by a drive down the street with the luminaries, and then amaretto on the rocks at home (the bonus of now being an adult).

The Perry Family came out for dinner, dressed for the occasion:
And managed to stay relatively clean throughout, which I think is an accomplishment.
Mason would like to give you a cookie. He's so funny, he spent a good minute with the cutest expression as he stared at the cookie plate trying to decide which one to eat, but by the time I got my camera it was gone and he was ready to choose for me.
They all decided to practice being asleep for when Santa came. But the zzz's didn't last long before they started playing again.
Christmas morning. And those presents are only the ones to/from me, Ellie, Mom and Dad. We might need to work on downsizing - wait til you see the second Christmas shot!
That was what I made for Ellie this year. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.
One of the sekrit knitting projects. I started that bad boy way back in September, then put it aside for a long time and then had a yarn crisis, but managed to get it done with time to spare, and without really ever working on it in front of mom, which I think is pretty amazing. And I have finally discharged her request for something to cover her head/neck/shoulders for when she's working on the computer. Never mind that she started asking for something to do that like 3 or 4 years ago.

We had Sunday to do a little bit of recovery, and then Monday was Second Christmas, as the Jersey family had arrived.
Um, yeah, you can't even see all the presents in this shot. That's how much stuff there was. We are truly blessed.
Another sekrit project, a Mario Mushroom hat for Charlie. Sadly that is the only shot that was taken. I didn't even get a shot of it not on his head. Bad knitter me.
The best shot of all the kiddos all week.

So Christmas was really good this year, it was fun to have it with all the kids - a first for us. All too soon it was New Years and the Jersey family left, but I'll do the New Year's celebration in the next post.