Uli's Creative Corner

We had our very first snow of the season last night. Some areas of town got snow, others just got rain. We got some snow. It took forever for any of it to stick but we ended up with a little bit on the ground. Enough that Erika and Evan got to go out all bundeled up and enjoy some of the wintery whiteness. It was all gone by this morning. Erika was so excited.

Just in time for December 1st, I would like to finally show you the completed Advent Calendar. It started out as a panel. I had to cut out all the little pockets, fold them and sew them on. Then I followed usual quilt treatment of sandwiching the quilt and quilting it. It's quilted with monofilament thread on the top and the quilting is basically a free hand outline of many of the objects. I stitched a grid between and around the windows. I outlined ornaments and the big tree. That all got finished last year some time and then I cut out the strips for the binding and that sat all year long, waiting for me to get to it again. I finally pushed it along so that we would at least be able to use it this year. So here it is:

Tonight we will hang it in the kitchen/dining room and I will fill it with little chocolate santas and some candy canes. Trying to teach Erika to only have one at a time will be the challenge!!!!

And to make it an interesting picture day, here is the finished poncho for my niece. I still have to give the trim a bit of a hair cut.

Not much knitting going on last night. I did finish one more Christmas present last night. Another pair of Fleece Artist Soft Socks. Those are for my Mom. I'll have to get some pictures tonight.

December tomorrow......... can you believe it. I have no idea where the year disappeared to.

With the lighting of the first candle on the Advent wreath at church yesterday, the cool temperatures, the Christmas specials on TV, the lights on the houses, and all that goes with it, it was time to give that festive look to the blog. 

And with the calendar saying November 28 yesterday, I knew I had to get off my butt and finish that Advent calendar 100% or it would hang over the ledge upstairs for another year.  And I am pleased to say that I fixed up all my binding boo boos and I made and attached the hanging sleeve.  We bought a piece of wood to hang it with and I got little chocolates and chocolate Santas to go into each pocket.  Unfortunately I can't show you a picture because it's not hung yet.  Evan still has to cut the wood down to size.  I'm so glad it's done.  I hope it will become a piece of our Christmas tradition for years to come - while Erika has that excitement about Santa, waiting for Christmas and all the good things that come with a little child's innocence as we prepare for Christmas.

I also fringed the poncho and it's all complete now.  By the time I was done, it was night time and picture opportunities are far and few between when it's dark.

On Saturday I got the opportunity to visit one of the LYS's I don't get to go to all that often.  I bought one ball of yarn for a hat for my brother-in-law and of course.... just a couple of nice looking balls of sock yarn made their way into my bag.  What was really special though was that I got to meet someone I met on one of the knitting lists I'm on... of all things, a German sock knitting list that we're both members of.  She lives in the same province I do and they happened to come for a visit to the Lower Mainland.  We met at the LYS, had a good look around and then had time for a coffee at Starbucks.  It was so nice to meet in person.  It could have been more fun had Erika not been the bundle of energy she usually is.  I kept chasing her into the bathroom more than I actually got to sit down and chat.  But, nonetheless, it was a nice visit.  The world is such a small place.

In other knitting news, I finished one soft sock for my Mom and I'm well underway with the second one.  I have a couple of other basic Christmas socks on the needles in various stages of completeness and I'm starting to feel good about what I have done already.  I don't feel huge amounts of pressure.  Some of the sock projects that are left now are "would nice to have" but if I don't get them done, the world will not end.  I'm planning on socks for my Dad and his birthday is on January 18th so if they don't happen for Christmas, I'll already have a nice birthday present for him.  I'm also planning on a pair of socks for my Mom but she is getting the soft socks so I may not do the pair of regular socks for her if I run out of time.  Once I finish what's on the needles now I'll put some priorities on what's left and finish up what's most important and then see how much time is left.

Time to go.  Have a great week.

It's Friday and I'm thankful for that.

Last night driving home, I witnessed an accident and I was almost part of the chain reaction.  Nothing serious happened to anyone.  The car that was affected happened to be one of my colleagues so it was a strange feeling to watch what happened.  There was a dump truck driver with a trailer stopped at the light, and right over some railroad tracks.  He decided to back-up to get off the tracks.  There was no train coming.  It was rush hour.  How could he think that there wasn't anyone behind him.  My colleague was at a safe distance.  He rolled right into my colleagues car and started pushing her back, almost into me.  I was so lucky that they stopped before they pushed into me because I had nowhere else to go myself.  And the truck driver had no idea he had just hit someone.  I feel good that I saw everything that happened and will be able to make a statement for her to say that she wasn't at fault and had no way to prevent this accident. Even though nothing serious happened, it did shake me up a bit.

It was TV night and I almost finished the second front on my MIL cardigan.  I'm only about 6 rows away from finishing that part.  I want to start the sleeve right away to keep the momentum.  I will have to measure her before finishing the sleeve though.  I think the sleeves should work up fairly quickly.  I can't wait to see this finished but there will be a fair amount of finishing.  pocket linings and pocket edging, buttonhole and button bands, as well as a fairly sizable collar.  I'm pretty confident I have enough yarn but I won't believe it until I actually see it.

I'll also try and focus on finishing more Christmas gifts this weekend as well as making some sort of hanging mechanism for Erika's advent calendar that I quilted.  I think I will just sew a sleeve and hang it the traditional quilt way.  I've just been too lazy to make that sleeve.  And two more pants to shorten are waiting for me. :-)) 

Other than music class we don't have a lot going on.  I think I will run up to a LYS I don't get to go to very often any more.  It's on the "other" side of the river.  But music class is on the other side of the river, too so we'll not be too far off.  I hope Erika will cooperate.  I think I have enough time to make a wooly hat for my brother-in-law.  It was on his wish list.  I have a nice pattern with some cables etc.  I just need the right yarn.  And to make life easy, I'd like to just go with the same yarn that's suggested in the pattern and I know that LYS carries it.

Have an awesome weekend.

Another Christmas present done.  Here is a pair of socks using some Opal Handpaints and a simple waffle stitch pattern.  I absolutely adore how these socks turned out.  The colours are so nice and rich and the pattern really worked well for that type of yarn.  I'm pleased with the result and even more pleased that I can strike one more project off the list.

One new thing I tried this time with the toe was a 3 needle bind-off.  I always do a very simple toe, decreasing down to a total of 8 stitches and then I pull those stitches together.  No kitchener stitch for me.... or let's say, I've just never taken the time to really try.  So I read about the 3-needle bind off on socks.  I decreased down to a total of 16 stitches, 4 per needle (and then combined into 4 stitches on 2 needles).  Then I turned my sock inside out by pulling the leg part through the remaining toe opening and then I just did a regular 3-needle bind off with the remaining stitches.   I quite like the look.  I think I will try it more often.

Other than that, nothing much got done because we had to run out to a couple of stores right after dinner.  Then when we came home I had to change the sheets on our bed and make up Erika's bed as well.  I also started a dinner on the crock pot (I prepare it all at night, store the pot in the fridge over night and then I just haul it out in the morning and get it started) just before bed time.  So last night was busy with other things.  And I really wanted to catch up agin to the point where I was with the MIL cardigan before ripping it the other night but I didn't even come close.

Tonight is Mommy's TV night - Survivor and Apprentice - so I should get the front all finished.

Coffee is ready.

Do you ever get overconfident in your knitting?  I sure do......... sometimes.  Or maybe I'm just rushing things along so much that mistakes creep in.  I made it to the armhole shaping on MIL's cardigan and laid out the pieces and made sure that I was decreasing for the arm hole at the opposite side as the first piece.  And off I went.  I knitted to within a few rows before starting the neck shaping ie. almost the entired length of the armhole.  Then, just before bed time as I was trying to think through the decreases for the neck something started to click.  Yes, you guessed it, I didn't put the armhole shaping on the opposite side.  I put it on the same side.  So now I had spent an entire evening knitting something that I had to rip back.  Oh, I was so disappointed in myself.  I had visions of finishing the front tonight and maybe even starting the sleeve.  But tonight I'll be re-knitting that piece.  It's not the end of the world.  It's a yarn that ripped out well and really, it was only about 1.5 hours of knitting - with many interruptions.  I should be able to re-knit it tonight without too much trouble.  I will have to go measure my MIL again anyways when it comes to the sleeves.  I know she has short arms and the last thing I want to have is sleeves that are too long on her.  I'm hoping the length will be just right by working all the increases and stopping just past where you continue knitting without increases.  I really don't feel like doing the math on this one to figure out different rates of increases if the sleeve needed to be even shorter than that.  I know, it's not hard........... I just don't feel like it.

There are two things in the latest Interweave Knits that I'm quite infatuated with.  I don't usually even buy that magazine.  I always think that there isn't anything in there that would fit me but maybe I've never really looked.  There are definitely some projects in there that could work for me from the perspective of sizing.  But that aside, I'm totall infatuated with the Nordic Mittens and the Fair Isle Sampler Hat.   I HAVE to make both.  Don't know when.......... but I know that I want those two pieces of accessories.  And I don't even like wearing hats............ I do for cross country skiing though.  I don't care what I look like when we're out there on the tracks with the skis on.  So I'm not trying to buy new yarn and at the same time I'm trying to source out where I can get the yarn to make those projects.  Go figure.

It's a very dark and dreary day today.  The kind where you curl up on the couch with your knitting and let the day pass by you.  Oh, it's a nice vision.  I have too much to do to think that way.  The coffee is starting to kick in and my day is reving up to be a high energy, run around kind of a day.

It's Wednesday.  The weekend is getting closer.  Have a good one.

I took some pictures of my finished Sophie bag and a lovely hat.  I used Noro for both.  Kureyon for the bag and Silk Garden for the hat.  The pictures are dark as it was a very dark and dreary day yesterday.

Introducing Sophie (who looks like she's mishaped at the bottom but that must be the angle of the picture because she really isn't.

And here is the lacey Noro hat.

I love this hat.  I got the pattern here.  It's a nice collection of little hat patterns all using one skein of Noro yarn.  The hat is nice, however, I didn't get as much of the green in as was in the skein of yarn.  It started with the deep jewel green and ended with it.  The brim rolls up a bit and hides most of the green and I didn't use all the yarn so the green at the end of skein didn't really take on a majore portion of the hat either.  But in its own way.......... that's the beauty of Noro - you never know what you'll really get until you actually knit it all up.

A last shot, here is a pre-finished picture of my niece's poncho.  I have since finished the neck by doing a simple cast off and creating just a bit of a rolled hem.  The pattern called for a turtle neck and I wasn't sure that a turtle neck would go over well.

The fringing is all that is left on this one.

To go back to my knitting with tree trunks story from yesterday, I'm pleased to say that I finished the scarf.  Well, I knitted up the entire ball not really thinking.  I knew the scarf was getting long.  Well, it's really long now.  I think it's too long even if someone wraps it around their neck both ways.  Just hanging it around the neck and over the shoulders, it basically reaches below my knees.  What do you think?  Rip back about a foot, maybe even a foot and a half.  I just kept going because I didn't want to waste any of the yarn but I think it's too long.  Bummer.  But at least when I'm done ripping back I don't have to re-knit.

Some of you know the story of my MIL cardigan.  I gave it to her for Christmas 2002 as a promise to make it for her.  I gave her the pattern in an envelope and told her that I'd buy the yarn and knit it for her over the course of they year.  I finally bought the yarn in the spring of 2004 and now I'm working on it.  I'm almost at the armhole shaping for the second front.  Another night or two fo knitting and the body will be all finished.  My MIL has short arms so the sleeves should go quickly.  So along with my other Christmas gift knitting, I am trying to finish this cardigan for Christmas.  I want to wrap it up and give it to her as a bit of a joke gift, maybe with a card saying "Merry Christmas 2002" (with 2002 in bold letters).  She'll get it and I don't think she'll be offended.  I'm not re-gifting it as a new gift for this Christmas but I think it would be a fun thing to give it to her at Christmas.

I'm tired today.  I need some coffee.

I'm a fan of smaller needles even though I like the satisfaction of the quick just like the next person.  I'm comfortable with needles up to about 6 mm.  Needles larger than that seem a bit annoying to me although you'll often find me picking up 6.5 mm up to 8 mm for that instant satisfaction that comes from knitting at that heavier gauge.  So yesterday, when I pulled out my Estelle Mama Mia hank and rolled it into one big soccer ball (I kid you not..... Erika thought it was a soccer ball) and pulled out my brand new 15 mm knitting needles I was shocked at how hard it was for me to knit with those.  I felt like a complete novice knitter and my hands got tired very quickly.  But at the same time, a scarf over 7 stitches, is a quick knit and I'm getting close to being finished already.  It will make a very nice, spectacular looking, warm and soft scarf.

I need new pictures.  I have things to show but didn't get my pictures uploaded or even taken on time.  It's hard to get good pictures right now with the weather so dark. 

I did make some progress on some gifts.  I knitted a hat from some Noro Silk Garden.  Very, very pretty.  I also finished my Sophie bag using some Noro Kureyon.  2 skeins of Kureyon, given the instructions are followed, are just the right amount.  So far so good.  It has been felted and is hanging in my room to dry right now.  I didn't check out how dry it was this morning.

That was about it for knitting progress.  I cast on for a hat for Erika using some Opal Magic Pastel in purple.  It's a variation of some cute hats I've seen done in a DK weight so I'm just playing around with the right amount of stitches to use etc.  This is not a priority knit.  The reason I cast on is because I really wanted to try out my new Bryspun flexible 2.75 mm DPNs.  They are kind of cool.  I only did a few rounds though.  If the hat works out, I'll write out the pattern and post it.

Other than that, the weekend was really busy and I did something different.  I had a bit of time on my hands on Saturday afternoon that I should have probably used for cleaning or laundry but instead I sat down and coloured.  I had bought some door hangers from Michaels.  They are plain wooden door hangers with various Christmas designs drawn on them.  I bought some acrylic paints and had some paint brushes and so I was colouring the designs in.  I did a candy cane and a Ho Ho Ho design.  It was kind of fun.  I have four more at home.  They are actually quite time consuming.  I could have probably knit most of a small hat in the amount of time that it took me to make those two.

Off I go.  A busy week is ahead.  I need to do research and write a paper here at work.  It will feel like being back in university.  Pictures tomorrow!!!!

I found it, I found it............... I found my lost favourite DPN.  I had two pairs of socks in progress in my little bag at the office yesterday.  When I went to work on one at lunch time I had a total of 9 DPNs.  Given that I work with 5 DPNs at a time, I was obviously short one.  I looked around and I looked around.  I couldn't find it.  I had enough to knit.  I just took the 5th needle from the second sock in progress and kept going, all the while worrying about my poor lost needle.  I came home and checked around the house.  Nope, no luck.  I checked the car.  No needle.  I was sure I had checked everywhere in the office.  So I was a little sad about another lonely set of DPNs having lost needle #5.  But I looked a little closer at work.  The needle must have tried to escaped and jumped from my bag right underneath the computer table and tangled up with all the wires.  So my needle is back.  I'm happy.  What do you do to not lose that extra needle in your take-along knitting?  I just put it through the knitting or the ball of yarn.  It falls out very easily that way though.

WW was dismal.  My friend got her 25 lb star/fridge magnet and I'm so proud of her success and I'm still struggling to get to 10 lbs.  I was up 2.4 lbs or something like that and when I stepped on the scale this morning, almost all that extra was gone again.  One of these days I'll get it together and at least hit that 10 lb milestone.

I worked on my Sophie bag last night.  I'm within about 10 rounds of finishing the body.  That's one more Christmas gift almost completed.  This weekend I think I'll try to finish my MIL's cardigan front #2 and make the one scarf and the one hat I'm making for Christmas gifts.  And maybe, only maybe, I'll get some sewing done. 

Have a great weekend.  We're going to put our Christmas lights up if it doesn't rain.... and you know what that means.... I'll have to do something about the look on this blog, given that I like to go with the seasons.  But maybe not until December 1.

Thanks Secret Pal............... you're awesome.  I came home to a lovely surprise last night.  Sorry, no pictures of all my goodies.  I never got a chance to grab the camera and when it's so dark and dreary, pictures don't turn out too well.

I hope I can remember everything that was in my awesome surprise package:

1 skein of Opal Handpaints in my absolutely favourite fall colour.  I'm knitting with that colour right now and it's just the best.  No, Secret Pal, don't be disappointed that I already have that colour.  I was most excited to receive it because as I'm knitting a pair of socks as a Christmas present for my MIL, I kept thinking "I wish I had some of this yarn for myself.  I should buy some...."  So this is awesome.

A set of 2.75 mm Bryspun flexible DPNs.  I'm really looking forward to trying these out as I don't have a set and have never tried to knit with them.

The cutest little sheep paper ornament.  It's so cool.

An awesome Berrocco pattern book.  There's a couple of neat designs in there and one of them I'm dying to challenge myself with.  As I flipped through the book, I knew I had to have it.

And then there were some stitching goodies.  Some great floss storage bags.  I think those will work beautifully to clean up some of my floss stash that I haven't had the time or energy to put away into the storage boxes I have.  The little flip flop cross stitch kit is also very, very cute. 

Thanks so much Secret Pal.  You really made my day.  I almost didn't see the package.  They aren't supposed to leave packages on the front step but this time they did and they tucked it just against the wall overhang by the front door.  It wasn't easily noticiable.  I just happened to see it when I went through the front door to go and get the mail from the mail box.  I'm so glad I didn't miss it.

I think I have most of my techno issues resolved.  I still have some issues with some of the pictures.  But I think most of them are back.  So now I can show you a really dismal picture of the Magical Mitered Squares Vest.

I admit this needs a better shot.  Maybe I can get a model shot and a daylight shot this weekend.  It is quite pretty but I sure didn't like the process of getting there.  I'm glad it's finished.

And let's see if I can find a picture of my niece's poncho.  It's somewhere.....

No, it's not.  I guess my pictures past "S" didn't upload last night.

We went to the library last night and I picked up a couple of knitting related books.  Erika likes going to the library and I try and encourage her to pick out her own books etc.  She especially likes that the library has a kid sized bathroom where she doesn't even need a stool to wash her hands. 

But with a library trip and some take-out Chinese Food (that doesn't bode well for my weigh in tonight) I didn't get much behind the knitting needles.  I worked just a little bit on my MIL cardigan.  I'm cruising up the 2nd front but very slowly.

This weekend I'm hoping to start on a Christmas present quilt and I hope to fully finish the advent calendar so we can hang it, I can fill it with goodies and then wait for December 1st to arrive.  Erika already has a cardboard one with the chocolates inside.  Christmas is closer than you think!!!!

Aren't computers fun?  I love them until they cause me problems and then I'm usually good at figuring out what's wrong but I haven't had enough time to sit down and figure out how to fix my current problem.  So for now, all my pictures with file names starting with a through m will show up.  Any others will probably appear as broken links as I haven't been able to do a proper upload to my server in a while.  It always stalls out on me.  I'm also running out of server space for my pictures so I've deleted some older pictures but that disappoints me because I like to go back and look at where I was at a year ago, 2 months ago, 2 years ago.  So I have to find some solutions.  There are lots of solutions out there but right now, I'm trying to go the cheap (aka free) route. 

So for now......... please bear with me.  The rest of my blog wasn't loading all that well either and I heard that my comments didn't seem to work yesterday as well.  Oh, eventually, it will all fall back into place.

So maybe today I can show off a couple of the dismal pictures - the ones with file names in the upper first part of the alphabet anyways.  Let's see what I can dig up.

Here are my finished Fluted Bannister socks:

These are a Christmas present for my sister-in-law.  The picture doesn't do the pattern justice.  I wasn't sure about using self-patterning yarn with the pattern but I think it turned out quite nicely.  I loved knitting this pattern and I think there are some more socks with that same pattern in the near future for me.  The yarn is DBG Confetti and I think I got an awesome pattern match.

Looks like that's all the pictures that made it to the server last night.  I usually try to do this stuff after everyone is off to bed.  Being tired doesn't help me get it right.  So when something doesn't work, I don't take the time to fiddle.  I just turn everything off and go to bed.

I did a few little things last night.  I started a scarf using the new Noro Kujako yarn in colour #13.  It's quite an interesting yarn.  It has a colourful variegated thread wrapped around the main strand of yarn.  The colours in the variegated thread changes as do the colours of the main yarn in striping Noro fashion.  I picked a Chevron pattern to create that waving effect.  I like the effect but I'm not sure that I like my needle size.  I chose a 5 mm needle and I feel it's all a bit stiff and a tight knit.  I'm thinking I should move up to a 5.5 mm and see how it goes.  I put that away after about 10 minutes.  I just had to try the yarn out.  Now that I did I can get back to my other projects.

I started another Christmas gift - a Sophie Bag.  I'm using some Noro Kureyon in Colour 128.  I just got the base done, picked up the stitches around the base and knitted a few rounds.

Then I switched to my MIL's socks.  I'm almost finished sock #1.  I'm already working on the toe so I really wanted to finish it but Erika's bed time came faster than anticipated and she wanted me instead of Daddy to read her stories so off we went.

Is it time for the weekend yet?