Uli's Creative Corner

Well, here it is......... my last finished object of 2005.  It's pretty much all I exclusively knitted on during the Christmas holidays.  A lot of love and a lot of time went into this baby blanket for our little guy but I think it was well worth it.  Lace is always so amazing when you wet it down (in this case I threw it in the washer with all of the little baby sleepers I've bought over the last few weeks - for a baby blanket to be able to use a superwash wool and to be able to throw it in the waser is very useful).  The lace pattern now shows beautifully and I think it turned out very, very well.  So here are some pictures, still lying on the blocking towels.

This wraps up my knitting for 2005.  I'm going to work on a sock tonight but I hardly doubt I'll be able to finish it.  I'm going to try and sit down to do a "year in review" post because I really want to tally up all my socks.

Have a safe Happy New Year's Eve and a wonderful 2006 filled with lots of knitting.

I'm so lazy this week........ and I'm also "single" Mom (not quite true) - but Evan is painting baby's room so I'm working at entertaining Erika so that she doesn't get bored and so that she keeps out of Daddy's hair.  Therefore, the lack of my presence around here.

I'm just stealing a few minutes while she's watching Tree House to tell you about my lovely x-mas gifts - knitting related, of course.

• Lorna's Laces specially ordered from Fun Knits in the Fun Knits and the Quadra Island colourways.  Shelley had these colours custom designed and they are awesome.  I love both of them and I was so pleased that I managed to figure out a way to have Evan surprise me with them without too much of my own intervention.  I was hoping I would get them but he was playing so "non-interested" when I told him about them.  I told Shelley what I wanted and she agreed to play Christmas elf if Evan called or e-mailed her and that's just how the deal went down.
• I also received 365 Knitting Stitches a Year and am looking at some of the patterns and thinking about what I might try to make with some of them.
• Then there was Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.  I've wanted this book for a long time now I just have to add the Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns to the collection at some point.

That's it for my knitting related gifts.  I also received a little ornament cross stitch kit.  I have a few of those in my collection already so that was nice.  I received 3 wallets (talk about receiving multiple gifts) and two pairs of slippers.  Some awesome pyjamas.  And.......... Pots and Pans........... no, not reason enough for a divorce.   They were well needed.  I just couldn't believe the money Evan spent on these suckers.  They are a professional set of stainless steel pots that work beautifully on our ceramic cook top.  I haven't used them much but what I've done with them so far has worked out beautifully.  My big gift was my rocker glider chair but that's not coming until February so.....

I am finising my lost FO of the year today.  I should be able to blog about it tomorrow - it's the Estonian baby blanket..... a true test of patience but it's done.  It's just going to be blocked later this afternoon.

I've been about as lazy as a person could be.... Well, we were busy at Christmas and I had a busy time preparing and cooking on Christmas Day but once that was done....... today was the first day I ventured out.  I wanted to venture out to see if I could get some baby sleepers on boxing week deals and I succeeded. 

We had a great Christmas and I'll talk about my knitting related Christmas presents when I can capture some pictures but for tonight, I'll leave you with my one and only Christmas knitting project - the Mousse Shawl which I gave to my Mom and I think she liked it.  She's going to wear it for their New Year's Eve dance they are going to and it's quite neat how she bought a blouse to go with a black skirt that works almost too perfectly with the shawl.

With my Mom wrapping it around her shoulders and inspecting how I made it..............

It was a successful gift..... I'm so pleased about that.

Erika most certainly enjoyed the excitement that Christmas brings to little ones:

More tomorrow...............

Merry Christmas

Can't even get my hands centered properly on the keyboard this morning - that's how tired I am!!!!  For this proclaimed morning person, mornings seem a real drag right now.  I guess these sleepless nights are practice for the real thing when I'll be awake with babe all hours of the night.  And how creative is it to give a pregnant woman wine for a Christmas gift???  Well, okay..... I won't look a gift horse in the mouth and I don't usually drink wine and I appreciate the thought of the gift so I should just as well enjoy it this morning, too.  I probably wouldn't have drank it non-pregnant and definitely won't pregnant but someone else will surely enjoy it very much.  My goal for the day is to leave the office spotless to ring in the new year.  That will be an all consuming job.  I'm a bit of a pack rat so there's lots of paper to sort through.

I blocked the Mousee Shawl last night.  I came to the conclusion that I don't enjoy blocking, especially when I find it really hard to kneel on the floor and bend over to put pins in things.  I don't have a blocking board.  I have nothing to guide my blocking ie. some straight lines to make sure I was blocking out the shawl to some decent consistent dimensions.   I'm disappointed in my blocking efforts on the floor on a bunch of towels.  We'll see how it looks when I take all the pins out when it's dry.  I know I didn't achieve the perfect exact same width all along the shawl.  I hope it will still look okay. 

I'm almost halfway done with the Estonian baby blanket.  2 more rows and I am halfway there.  Yikes.  This thing truly is a lot of work but it's a good pattern to knit.  I probably just need to keep sticking to it so that I don't abandon it.  I have the feeling that it will be my Christmas Eve takealong project.

Coffee is done.......... time to grab some.  I'm just rambling today anyways.

I took a "break from life" yesterday and tried to fight this cold of mine.  It helped a lot as I slept a lot and just plain old relaxed.  I'm not 100% but I feel better today.  I'm still all stuffy but at least my eyes aren't watering at random and I'm just a lot more alert.

After I had a good amount of sleep yesterday I felt like tackling one of our two ginger bread houses with Erika.  The house building story is self explanatory in these pictures:

We had fun!!!!  And Erika had free reign on the decorations.  We almost forgot the chimney though but I managed to get it to stick after all.

Today we will be giving Erika's daycare teacher this little gift as it is her last day before her mat leave on Friday:

I used some Steinbach Wolle Aktiv Color 100 sock yarn, 2.5 mm needles, a German pattern for the booties and my head for the hat.  The hat basics are a cast on of 22 stitches per needle (total of 88 stitches) on 2.5 mm dpns.  10 rounds of 2X2 rib and then stocking stitch for approximately 35 rounds.  The crown is shaped the first row with K 9, K 2 together, repeat for round.  Then knit a row and then K8, k2 together repeating throught next round, knit round.  As you continue the crown shaping the knit stitches before the k2 together will decrease by 1 stitch each decrease round until you're down to 2 stitches on each needle.  Draw the thread through the remaining stitches, pull tight and a little hat is done.

Another little simple hat and bootie set I just finished is this one made from Regia Jubilee.  The hat design is a bit different.  I cast on 80 stitches on 2.75 mm needles (don't like the 2.75 with the sock yarn though - a bit too lose in my opinion for my knitting style).  I knit 6 rounds in stocking stitch and then added 8 rounds of 2X2 rib and then stocking stitch right up to the crown where I K8, k2 tog the first round and I decreased each and every round until only 4 stitches were left.  I also added two I-chord ties to the top and knotted them together.

Both sets took just under 40 grams of yarn with the hat only using about 12 to 13 g of yarn.  So one of these hats can easily be made with leftover yarn from a pair of socks.  For hat and booties you need a bit more.  The white speckled yarn really worked for me.  I love how the set looks so I'm probably going to make a hat and sock set for our little guy with that yarn as I have plentry left over.  Mind you, I'd easily be able to get a pair of kids' socks out of the leftovers of any of the two projects so I could get Erika to benefit from the leftovers.  I'll see.

My little hats certainly aren't originals.  They are derivations of many little hat patterns out there so I'm not claiming any fame to any of these 2 hats.  For example, Shelley over at Fun Knits, in her free pattern section, has a great little pattern written up for very similar little infant hats and infant socks.  I think I'm also going to make a couple of little hats with some of my cotton sock yarn.  That stuff feels so soft and non-scratchy.

Speaking of baby........... I had an ultrasound this morning at the hospital and the tech kept commenting how active he was.  Yeah, no kidding.  Apparently, the OB was on track estimating that he was fairly big as she also came out with an above average size for his current age.  However, my due date that she calculated was within a week of my stated due date.  So, I guess I'll have some fun delivering the little guy.  She says that his estimated current weight was 4 1/2 lbs.  So we'll see.  I'm getting the feeling I'll have this little guy long before my birthday which is Feb. 21.  My due date is put at Feb. 18 and I always thought I'd be in hospital on my birthday but we'll see how it goes.  He's already turned head down..... just waiting now.........

Right now I'm planning my Christmas Eve knitting.  We'll be over at my Mom's house for most of the day.  It will be a cozy day.  I'll help Mom in the kitchen a bit but usually, she is so organized there isn't much to do (and she doesn't let me do a whole lot).  So I could take a pair of socks and just do simple, I could just comfortably settle into the rythmic pattern that becomes the Estonian baby blanket.  Or..... of course, there are many options.  I could even start something brand new just because it's Christmas.  Hmmmm, what do you think I'll end up doing?

The cold and frosty mornings outside are being replaced with rain but the cold has moved into my head in a literal sense.  I spent the day yesterday on the couch and I kind of wish that I could still be on the couch today.  I should have taken a sick day but we have our staff Christmas party today and we always do some crazy stuff so I didn't want to let my "team" down. 

As a result, I spent most of yesterday on the couch and didn't even get a ton of knitting accomplished.  I think I dozed or slept most of the time.  I did knit a really, really cute baby hat for one of Erika's daycare teachers' new and coming arrival.  It's her last day at work this Friday and then she's off.  She's not much farther along than I am.  3 weeks, maybe....  Now I'm making little booties to go with it and when it's all done I'll show you.  I made a little hat and booties for our little guy last week, too but this one is turning out much cuter.  I think my biggest problem was needle size.  I used 2.75 mm dpns with sock yarn for the little guy's and I don't like how lose it turned out.  I used my standard 2.5 mm with this one and it looks so much nicer.  Mind you, I knit the BeesKnees sweaters with 3 mm needles on the same sock yarn and don't mind how the stitches turn out and look.

My cats had a run in with one of my knits on Saturday morning.  Yikes.... they always leave my stuff alone so I'm not anal about putting my projects away over night.  Well, I found my Estonian baby blanket on the floor on Saturday morning.  I took one look at it and it looks like one of the kitties got a claw stuck in it.  In the 2nd row of the garter stitch edge and pulled a thread about 8 inches long.  So one row of stitches is now very snuggly pulled and a long piece of string hanging off where she got caught.    I have already invested hours and hours in this blanket and it's not even halfway done.  The problem happened in row 2 and I'm probably close to working around row 100 now.  I haven't had the time or energy to really sit down with it but I've worked the thing a bit to know that with some very careful manipulation, I can probably pull most of the thread back in place but whether I'll be able to hide it all and get the stitches that are pulled so tightly into any even resemblance, I don't know yet.  It's frustrating.  Maybe tonight I'll give fixing it a shot and see where that takes me.  I'm looking forward to a relaxing afternoon at my Mom's for Christmas Eve on Saturday and i was thinking that the blanket would be my main knit to take along for that while enjoying Christmas Eve day which is always special in our house.

Other than that, no major progress on anything.  I still have to block the shawl.  I just couldn't move myself to do that this weekend. 

Have a great week.

Yawn.......... I'm tired.  When I'm at these work related sessions, even when we have down time, I don't usually pull out the knitting even though I'd be so productive and still a contributing member of the team but.....  but yesterday when the clock started hitting 5 pm and we were all getting tired and it was looking like a long evening, I pulled out the sock and started working on it.  I got at least 1/2 of the leg done so if I had pulled it out much earlier, I could have probably had 3/4 of a sock done.  As it was, we finished up about 8 pm and went home.  I was a tired girl.

I came home to an empty house as Evan took Erika out shopping to the mall to let her pick something for me for Christmas.  Do you think it's still a surprise?  What do you think?  How soon did I know what the surprise was?

Well, the shopping is almost done but the presents aren't wrapped yet.  Mom is going to get the Mousse Shawl.  It's just calling her name.  An afternoon off is calling to me so I'm going to do that today and finish things up.  Maybe I'll even wrap some things when I come home.  We're getting company for dinner tomorrow evening and I want the house to be nice and tidy so I should get started if I have a little bit of extra time.  Otherwise we'll be trying to do everything all in one day including the grocery shopping (unless we go out tonight).

I think we also need to go for a drive to check out Chrismas lights.

Hopefully that and some relaxing knitting this weekend will be a nice mix of a weekend.

Nothing is really new here.  I'll be away for the next couple of days - Wednesday and Thursday.  Work related stuff and the days might be long so I might not get on line in the evenings either.  We'll see how it goes.

A quick admin note......... I had a note from happy2b12005 about my Charlotte spreadsheet.  If you stop by to read this, I'd love to send you the spreadsheet via e-mail if your'e having trouble downloading it from the blog but I need your proper e-mail address to do so. 

You know I said I wasn't doing any Christmas knitting........... well, not officially and then something happened in my head last night while putting Erika to bed.  I finished the knitting part on the Mousee shawl.  I need to block it still and add fringe.  It's very pretty.  The colours are great.  I wrapped it around me.  I think it would be nice if it was a bit wider and a bit longer.  Of course, I'm all out of yarn and don't really want to make any changes either.  Now, if I was skinnier it would probably wrap better or hang longer or whatever.  I do like it a lot though.  Later, when I was lying down, I started to think about how my Mom and the shawl would look paired up together.  My Mom is short - maybe barely 5 feet tall.  She isn't big around the top either.  We have pear shapes in our family.  The shawl is probably a much better match with her size and height and the colours work for her as well.  The shawl has a fair bit of red in it and Mom looks great in red.  Mom and Dad also go out dancing once a week and a couple of birthdays ago I made her a triangular shawl because she was complaining that she'd get hot on the dance floor and then chilled sitting back at their table.  Hmmm, a dancing girl can never have enough shawls for that purpose, can she?  I also still need one more gift for my Mom.  I never thought of her when I started it but now I can't get it out of my head.  So maybe it was meant for my Mom all along?  I asked Evan what I should do but try and get a "real" answer on issues like that out of a guy.  What to do?

We ordered the little guy's wallpaper border for his room last night (pirates) and Evan brought home some matching paint - blue for the bottom, then the border, and tan for the top of the room.  I still don't see any way to get the room ready before the big arrival but we'll work it out somehow.

Tonight I have to get our Christmas cards.  We ordered picture cards through Future Shop.  They stated on their web site that they would take 5 business days from the day of the order.  We submitted our order on November 24 and picked it up yesterday.  That was 11 business days instead of 5 and now many of my cards that are bound for Europe will probably end up being late.  Ah well, we'll try and put them together tonight so that they can go out in the mail tomorrow.

See you in a few days.

How quickly weekends go by......... but see, I did get a bit of relaxing and knitting in.  I could get used to those comfy recliners at my in-laws' house.  In my hands is the Esonian Baby Blanket.  Slowly but surely, it's growing - one row at a time.

And Erika was resting with her Papa in the other recliner:

I got some awesome Lorna's Laces from my friend Shelley over at Fun Knits.  She ordered it for me with her last order of Lorna's Laces yarn.

Here is some Helen's Lace in the colour Gold Hill - lovely, lovely stuff:

And then a nice big hank of Heaven in Black Purl.

Those yarns are so yummy.

And then I got a surprise.  At stitches, I fell in love with a kettle dyed wool called Malabrigo.  It was so soft and I kept going back to the booth, never buying any.  When you go back to a yarn and fondle it at least 10 times........ it should come home with you.  I never got there to Stitches that weekend a second time and so I didn't get the Malabrigo.  Then my LYS said they were going to get some in.  Oh joy........... been waiting forever.  And then Shelley tells me that she carries it now.  My wheels start turning given that after some fairly expenive Lorna's purchases and my upcoming major one year yarn diet.... there's no way I can justify the Malabrigo "just because".  Well, as a gift to baby, Shelley sends me two skeins of Malabrigo and a great blue/green colourway with a Knitting Pure & Simple pattern with a little top down baby sweater.  I could not believe my eyes.  I can't wait to get that on my needles.

Thank you Shelley......... you have no idea how special you made me feel.

The rest of the weekend is a blur and we're off to the races with another busy week ahead.  I still have a bit of Christmas shopping left but nothing too major.  I hope to get it done in a few days.