I'm happy to be working on something for ME for a change. I finished one of the broadripple socks yesterday, and am into the leg of the second already. They're so comfy on my preggo swollen feet! I love the pattern too, I'm contemplating knitting up a set for my mom for her birthday and maybe my mother-in-law too! (both have birthdays in later January)

I'm also going to make another one of the hooded baby sweater from the original Knit It magazine. It's a nice easy pattern and the yarn (lion brand microspun) is SO soft. I bought the yarn in beige when I found out I was pregnant to make a sweater for our baby anywyas. The pattern has an error in that you are supposed to use two strands of the yarn knit together, but it doesn't say that. The first time I made it, the sweater came out almost newborn size instead of 12 month. I cast on with two strands but it looked huge, so I think I might just do it one strand and make it small so our girl can wear it right away.

My handmade gifts were all really well recieved :) The reaction to curious george was "you MADE that?" which is always nice. The sweater fit my little sister very well, and she liked it. You can't see the detail and she's making a funny face, but here she is wearing it:
I was worried the sleeves would be too short, I'm glad I didn't extend them, I just stretched them a bit when blocking. ***WOW does blocking make a difference in a sweater - I'm definitely converted. The stitches soften and even, and the fabric drape gets so much nicer***

I treated myself to some yarn this afternoon. I bought two skeins of Cascade Fixation in a pretty purple colourway:
I'm going to make the Broadripple socks from Knitty.com and they are going to be FOR ME! :)

More Christmas crafting! This morning I made two beaded creatures for my mom. (she's doing a "garden" themed tree)


Okay, a frog is only SORT of garden themed, but it's hard to find good examples to work from online! I realize the frog is seriously missized too, but it was a pony bead one I was copying and I was using seed beads. Still, I think they turned out ok!

Finished up both the BPT sweater AND the Curious George Doll for my brother!!




The sweater still needs a zipper, which I will put in tonight. The photo isn't great as it's blocking on my freezer, but I'll take a photo of my sister in it on Christmas, if she'll let me.

All this christmas knitting is stressing me out. I finished the hats for the cousins, but I still have so many projects to finish and only days left. I'm hoping to get a good amount of the hood on BPT done parked in front of the TV tonight. I've also got to assess the monkey doll to see how much there is to do.

Something neat I'm also working on...........when my aunt sent me a box of knitting stuff from my granmother (who passed away 5 years ago) I found in it some half finished mittens. One pair adult sized and one kid sized. I'm finishing up both pairs, there is luckily enough yarn, and giving them to my two cousins in town, ages 8 and 14. I'm going to tag them as "from Grandma and Wendy" and explain how I got them and finished them up to give to each of them. The younger cousin only met grandma once and was little, but the older one will remember her. I hope they think it's neat. It is bittersweet working on these, nice to finish something I know she started, and sad as I didn't get into knitting when she was still alive. I think we could have enjoyed sharing this hobby, and I know she would have been impressed by some of the projects I've made. Grandma taught me the basics of knitting when I was a little girl.....

I redid the sleeve of the BPT sweater, but I haven't bound off the cuff yet. I'm going to do the hood first and see how that makes the sleeves hang, before seeing if I need to undo the first cuff to make them longer. I'm having a little trouble picking up the stitches for the hood, my stitches end up off by half a stitch. The pattern says not to use the "provisional cast on" or this will happen, but I don't know what a provisional cast on is! I'll figure something out though, the yarn doesn't show stitches TOO clearly so I can sort something out.

I made hats for my cousins this weekend:

The white was for the one year old and the light blue for the almost 7 year old, but I realised they were going to be too small. I finished the light blue one for the 1 year old boy and then did up the navy blue one for the 7 year old girl. I think the style of the darker one will suit her better anyways.

I also gave my mom a gift early. She's doing a "garden" themed christmas tree and I thought these little critters I made would be a perfect addition:


Finally, I finished up hubby's "lightening hat" last night. I have to weave in some ends and block it (a LOT) but I think it turned out ok for my first ever attempt at intarsia!

Major trauma with the BPT sweater. I finished up the second sleeve last night and confidently grafted the i-cord cuff, wove in the end, and only THEN realized it was about an inch too short! I also found 2 decreasing errors on the other sleeve, as in, I missed 2 decreases, which really affected the end result. AAARRRGGGG! So I ripped out the sleeve with the decreases, and am working on knitting that back up. Haven't decided about the other sleeve but I think I really should fix it, too short of sleeves would make the sweater look crappy and not get worn I think. I'm so ready to be done this - my sister better like and appreciate it!

I made a flower facecloth from the Intereweave Knits magazine. I just used plain old crafters cotton, because that's what I had. It turned out okay, though I ran out of yarn about 2 yards short so I had to fudge the middle a bit. I don't have a photo because I haven't woven in the ends or anything so it looks funny, there are 12 ends to weave in! I think I will keep this one, as the middle looks funny, and it's just in a plain old beige anyways. I want to buy some nifty colours to make gift ones.

I went to a friend's craft sale/open house this weekend with my mom. She has a casual open house party, and sets out all of her crafts for sale. It's neat, no pressure, just a chance to check out her stuff and buy things you like. I bought three butterflies, aren't they pretty?

I'm sticking them to the wall above the baby's crib, the wall there was pretty bare and these aren't something dangerous to fall on her. (they're light so they won't come unstuck anyways, but a picture or shelf over a crib is just a bad idea)

I splurged and bought the new interweave Knits to get the reverse bloom flower facecloth pattern. It's pretty neat, I'm most of the way through my first one. I can't find cotton chenille anywhere around here, so I'm just using plain old crafter's cotton and it seems to be working fine. It is a fairly simple pattern, but I kept losing track of what row I was on so I had to remake each of the petals at least once. They should be a good fast gift thing to make for people.

The BPT sweater I am making for my sister is stressing me out a bit. I finished the first sleeve and tried it on, mainly to check the sleeve length. The cuff is really wide and it seems way too big. It would nearly fit me, and my sister is significantly smaller than I am. I measured the bottom hem and I'm fairly close to the pattern measurements, so maybe it will all work out in the end. It's too late to start over or make something else, that's for sure. Worst-case, if it is WAY too big, I can keep the sweater and wear it after I loose the pregnancy weight, and let her pick a sweater for me to make for her birthday in April or something.

I finished the Wheat Ears Baby Afghan on the weekend. It's small, I didn't have a skein of cotton to work with. The yarn was given to me, and was likely bought a long time ago, so I didn't want to bother trying to match the colour, so I went for a short blanket instead.

It's about 2 feet by 3 and a half feet, should be good for a stroller blanket, or to cover me when nursing or something. I really like how it turned out, the colour is nice and the pattern is pretty. It was originally started to be a gift but I liked it too much!