oh christmas tree...

not that we have one. we have a kitteh instead. but anyhow. i'm not really feeling the spirit, to be totally honest. but, i got the christmas lights up, have only one more gift to finish with, as well as one gift to finish knitting, (BOOYAH) and i'm finally DONE baking stupid cookies for the work cookie exchange. and i only burnt myself once. :)

nothing particularly crafty to report. sick of socks.

the best part of having too many projects started

is getting to see them all come together and be finished.

a bee block, which is quite nice looking, but only from a distance. this block was just awful for me, not too sure why, but i was nowhere near getting it to lay flat. :(



another bee block, which turned out much better, and had FABULOUS fabrics. i have to do something in gray and yellow!



two sets of maplelea doll blanket and pillow sets for my nieces, to go with the beds that we got them:





and i'm hoping that every day will bring something more done: a cowl, two pairs of socks, and a hat are still on the list for christmas, and are all in various stages of completion.

reasons why i should not start projects on friday evening:

1--i'm tired and consequently, and without fail, fuck them up and end up spending the better part of the evening with the seam ripper, which is NOT good times. this has been true ever since i was a little sewer on my mom's old singer in the basement of our house back in the day.

and tonight is no different. i'm nothing if not consistent.

i couldn't bear to look at another sock, and have decided to make doll blankets for my neices. i had decided on pinwheels, which means half-square triangles. which i'm totally familiar with, and love. so in looking at sizing (add 5/8". five-eigths of an inch?? GUH @ quilters! but onwards.), i found this grid pattern thinger. so easy! FRIDAY EASY!

cut my pieces. drew my grid, sew, sew, sew. snag. out of bobbin thread, fine, move on. snag: i'm an idiot. harder to get over, unfortunately. instead of these lovely half-square triangles:



i managed to make a stack of quarter-square-good-for-nothings:



and of course, the inevitable date with my seam ripper. good times.

what a bunch of whiners over here

so i had started a koolhaas for mister man, but somehow managed to screw something up about three rows back, not notice, then notice, then think "maybe it'll be ok" and cable another row, and that somehow magically didn't fix it. so i was so angry that i needed to just put it down.

but i made the mistake of telling him that the hat was for him, and he's fresh out of hats presently (he's lost them all, somehow), so everty time he sees me knitting something, he looks sad and asks if it's his hat (because he has no hat, and it's cold out). and i have to tell him again that i screwed up his nice project and still can't bring myself to look at it, but he'll have a hat soon...

so last night, it finally occurred to me that i could get my brother-in-law gifts (hats) off my needles really quickly if i just made the yarn bulkier (DUH!), but then mister man noticed that there were hats, and was all "what about MY hat, i don't have a hat..."

so now he does:



and, it was all tucked up next to his pillow this morning when i got up, so he clearly wore it to bed! it's nice to be loved. or at least for the knitting to be loved...

also, on my way to stealthily (more or less) photograph the hat in its new natural environment, the cat was also being a big whiny baby, and kept throwing himself in front of me to play:



ps--sorry for such grainy photos, not sure what my problem last night was...

i ♥ my work(place)

well, i ♥ my work too, but still. my workplace is just adorable. we've started knitting twice a week, and we're going to start a knitalong. and even though i'm at home watching columbo (for reals) and knitting with the dog curled up with me and the cat watching for his opportunity to git my yarn, i was thinking of my work knitting cuties. and it makes me happy. especially with all of our mounting christmas knitting.

knitting like a fiend

so i've finished stockpiling bibs like it's 1999 (assuming, of course that y2k had more to do with spit up than mass chaos...), and now i've moved onto the insane christmas rush. which i was determined to avoid this year, and so started knitting christmas socks (6 pairs) for stocking stuffers in august. AUGUST. so that i wouldn't be rushing like last year.

and then, the group gift for mister man's family didn't work out, and now i've got 5 more adult gifts to figure out, and four gifts for our little neices. oh my! BUT, this *did* mean that i had good reason to get to a yarn store! :D and a craft show.

hit up the ottawa guild of potters annual christmas sale. and got some fabulous wine tumblers, as well as some mugs for mister man, which he didn't expressly say that he wanted, but i wanted to get for him, so that's what he's getting. and then the girls and i hit up wabi sabi, FREAKING FINALLY. none of us had ever been, and i got the last of the yarn that i needed for the adult gifts, including a cowl, a scarf, and two boy hats.

still not sure what the girls are getting. they are 5, 7, 9 & 11, so quite a range. maybe i'll sew something, since that's faster (unless i have to have to pull it up and start again...).

so yeah. no pictures, but lots of plans. good thing that we're knitting two days a week at lunch at work. PLUS, so exciting: there is talk about starting a knitalong in the new year. i've always wanted to be a part of a knitalong, but somehow have never managed to get on board with one...

so i've been doing stuff...

i swears!

started a knitting club at work! yay! so i'm getting my christmas sock knitting all finished up nicely. huzzah! thankfully, no one on my knitting list reads my blog. teehee. :)

and i've been getting baby things done up the wazoo. stockpiling bibs like it's 1999. and then the y2k was more about spit-up and less about computers. (no picture, they weren't turning out nicely.)

and i've been baby blanket'ing it up. unfortunately, no stockpile. that's my plan for the next year since a lot of people i know are getting married and knocked up. it's a bit surreal. but it ends up with cute knits and baby blankets:





this was my first dresden plate, which i made from amy's tutorial and a pattern that i made up out of bristol board. the part about pinning it flat was ESPECIALLY helpful.





and this is my first try at a values quilt, and in the sunlight it looks like it REALLY worked out well! :) i will for sure be making another one of these...

and i'm out. (like elvis.)