Happy Boxing Day

Yes, it's time to buy lots of crap you couldn't afford before. Tom has lots of shopping plans for the day. Yuck.

Christmas turned out lovely. We couldn't join our friends in Hamilton because of Maria's mono, so I whipped up a complete turkey dinner, and I actually enjoyed doing it. Amazing!

Maria's actually feeling much better, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the day. Tom and I went to church in the morning, and the service was perfect. Lots of traditional carols and beautiful decorations.

The gift giving was fun, with everyone happy with their gifts. Knitting related gifts I received were this book from the girls:



And this fabulous Hermosa bag by Namaste from Tom:



I love it!

Christmas knitting

Is done!!

Not to hard since I didn't do a lot, and I was stuck at home keeping my mono-stricken daughter company while Tom and daughter B entertained the MIL and hubby. Hours of knitting and TV watching. And more to come. It will be a while before she can do much.

So here is Miranda's Tomten jacket:



And while she was here, I decided to knit the MIL another scaruffle (she lost the one I knit her last year). Two days at home and I was done:

Nothing much to blog about

There's really nothing to blog about. Knitting is going along, but nothing is finished.

Well, one thing to mention is the knitting class I took with Amy Swenson. It was on grafting and it was great! She had some great tips which make it much easier to keep track of where you are (in case someone dares interrupt you while grafting) as well as establishing a nice rhythm. I was actually able to graft and talk at the same time! During the class I grafted the hood of Miranda's Tomten jacket and now I'm rather stuck on the finishing. I think I want to do applied i-cord with hidden button holes, but EZ's directions are a little daunting. I guess I'll go look for some instructional videos.

Football and knitting

Watching Arsenal vs. Chelsea. I imagine co-worker Neil is getting ready to gloat as Chelsea has just scored. Wait, now there's another goal for Chelsea. An own goal!!!Sh*t!

Anyway, in better news, I finished the first sock for Maria: I like it a lot except for the knobby edges of the grafted toe. I need to bring it to my grafting class to get suggestions.



I've also made good progress on my Oblique sweater:



Next task, four squares to bring to the grafting class.

Blocked scarf and a new project

I washed and blocked Jill's scarf today. I like it a lot:





I've been working on socks for Maria. Just 3x1 rib. Easy. Portable. The yarn has a lot of flaws in it, however, so I'm not sure how well they'll wear. Anyway, this is just sock number one, but it's coming along nicely.



Finally, Boo has decided his food would be more useful as an art piece:

I did it!

40 minutes of concentrated kitchner stitch produced a pretty succesful join:



It was really hard to maintain my concentration throughout all 63 stitches, but I think it turned out pretty well. I'll post pictures of the finished scarf after I block it.

And here's a lovely shot of the cats acting like they like each other:

Almost done

My Lily of the Valley Scarf is all finished, but for the grafting. Oh dear, the worst part. I don't like Kitchner stitch, and I'm not fully satisfied with any of my attempts at it. I'm taking a class on it, in a few weeks, but I need the needles for my Forest Path Stole, so I'm not sure I want to wait. But since it's a gift I want to do a really good job. What to do?