That’s right, it’s more boys for our family! The last time I wrote about babies in our family, we were waiting to find out what the next two (due in March and in April) would be. Turns out they are both boys! That will make 8 boys in 8 years (and no girls)!

I made this sweet pair of booties as a little Christmas gift for one of them. These are the Oscar booties , my favorite pattern for booties.

I used some Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport Solid from my stash, on size 0s, and a sweet little white ribbon for the ties. I think they are quite charming. This is a very fast and easy pattern to whip up, and I would highly recommend it. It goes especially nicely with any sort of garter jacket or sweater (in the past, I’ve made them to go with the Baby Surprise Jacket). Lorna’s Laces Sport is also my go-to yarn for this knit (and for baby knits in general). I always order it from Angelika’s Yarn Store – she ships so fast! I pretty much always get my orders in exactly 2 days.

This was my last FO for 2011. I still have a little bit of sewing to show you, and then I will finally move forward to 2012!

raveled

Well, hello there! Life interrupted my blogging, right when there was so much to write about! Let’s see if I can catch up.

I think this is my last unblogged knit from 2011. I made these last May, thinking they were the first of two pairs (one for each son). But I still haven’t made the second pair. Which is ridiculous, because they are so fast and easy.

pattern: David’s Toe-Up Sock Cookbook
yarn: Spinning Colors Sock Yarn, in “Denim Dream,” about half a skein
needles: size 0 dpns

He loves them. His brother wonders why he doesn’t have a pair yet. Oops!

Here’s to more socks in 2012!

raveled

A conversation on the Hello Yarn forum about whether a particular sweater-in-progress would look better with the stockinette side out or the reverse stockinette side got me thinking. I realized that this pullover, my first (and so far only) adult-sized sweater from my own handspun (Hello Yarn Polwarth, “Cauldron”) could actually be reversible. So I tried it out – and I love it!

I wear this sweater many Saturdays during the fall and winter. It is so cozy and comfy – and warm without being bulky. It’s pretty pilly, but I don’t care. I love it. And all the more so now that I realize it’s reversible.

raveled

So I designed something, y’all! Actually two somethings!

Last fall, every Sunday night after watching Dexter on Showtime, I kept seeing those promos for the new series Shameless. I became utterly obsessed with a pair of fingerless mitts worn by Emmy Rossum as Fiona Gallagher. I watched and rewatched the promo countless times online (and later did the same thing with a few portions of the first episode on DVR) in order to get a better look at those mitts. I was totally smitten with them.

They were slouchy, grey, cabled, and textured. I loved how the seed stitch wrapped around the outside of the hand.

I loved how they were super-long, so that, though they were fingerless, they could easily cover the fingers if needed.

And I knew the perfect yarn for them: Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool (a Michigan yarn!) in Pewter, which my lovely local yarn shop (Knit A Round) carries in abundance. I pretty much straight-up copied the ones from the show, as best I could.

But I included options in the pattern, for making them shorter and ending with ribbing instead. I realize that the long, slouchy look is not the usual preference for fingerless mitts. Check out the gorgeous shorter ones that Kirsten and Carrie made. I love them! They both used Shepherd’s Wool, too. Don’t their mitts looks so yummy?

Elinor mentored me through the whole process of designing these, including making the charts for the pattern ( Kirsten helped with that, too – thank you, Kirsten!). There’s no way I could’ve done it without their help.

Elinor suggested that I make the pattern into a set. So I set out to design a hat to match the mitts. Emmy Rossum doesn’t wear anything like this in the show, but don’t you think she should?

It’s also made with Shepherd’s Wool and it has become my go-to hat this season. It has the same offset cable as the mitt, along with those nubby seed stitch panels (love me some seed stitch!). And it’s slouchy without being ridiculous:

I always wear slouchy hats down close to my brow, but this hat looks good in the more common style of wearing it back on the head. I just can’t pull that off, but the lovely Evalyn can:

The cables come together at the back of the slouch for a fun look:

There’s no way I could’ve brought these patterns out of my head and into life without Elinor mentoring me just about every step of the way. Thanks, Elinor, for the encouragement, advice, and support. You rock!

I’m also grateful to the amazing and multi-talented Stacie Dolin for her detailed tech editing! And to the inimitable Heather for test knitting, encouragement, and comic relief.

The patterns are available for sale through Ravelry as a collection or individually. You can purchase the pattern for the mitts here and for the hat here .

This set is near and dear to my heart, and I hope you love it, too! It’s not too late to bang out a hat or a pair of mitts (or both!) for a holiday present for someone special – or for yourself!

The simplest one I’ve made so far, and my favorite.

- wee square glassine envelopes from Amazon
- free printable numbers from here
- tiny clothepins from Joann’s (reused from last year)
- hung on white yarn attached to 3M Command strips

It’s not fancy, but I like it.

I found some cute stick-on snowflakes from World Market, and each day we open a number, I put a snowflake on it to show that that day is passed (I took this picture last week, obvs).

I’m not going to photodocument this year, but I do want to remember what we did which day. So far:
Day 1 – pick out and bring home a Christmas tree
Day 2 – bake Christmas cookies – some to eat and some to give to the church youth group concession stand
Day 3 – stay in your pajamas all day – look under the tree for new pajamas (Muppets “Animal Rocks” pjs)
Day 4 – hang the special ornaments on the tree and put the star on top (we had already gotten the ligths and other ornaments on)
Day 5 – make (and eat!) S’mores
Day 6 – finish making your Christmas lists and decide what you’re getting other people for Christmas
Day 7 – set up the nativity set – see if you can tell the Christmas story while putting it together
Day 8 – watch Christmas classics – look under the tree (I had gotten a 2-disc set of classics like Rudolph, Frosty, etc.)
Day 9 – have a family movie night
Day 10 – help mom make marshmallows – eat some in hot cocoa

We haven’t done as many things focused helping/giving to other people yet, but I still hope to. The boys are at an age where that’s a little bit of a harder sell – I mean, they are happy to do it, but it’s not an exciting thing to find in the envelope, you know? Tomorrow Is going to be one that they aren’t going to be as excited about, so I’ve tried to prepare them. We’ll see how it goes….

I never did find a new Christmas Planner option, so I went back and used the same tutorial as last year (but without the downloadable piece for the cover, since it’s out-of-date). I bought this Martha Stewart paper at Joann’s last year, and I love it so much.

I’m using it to keep track of Christmas lists, Christmas cards, menus, to-do-lists, and thank you notes. Love it!

This was going to be for Rhinebeck, then it was going to be for Christmas, now I’ll just be happy if I get to work on it some on my Christmas vacation. Maybe I can get it done in time for Valentine’s Day?

I fell in love with this pattern when I saw Glenna, the designer, wearing hers at Rhinebeck last year. I couldn’t quit petting it – the teeny cables in this yarn (Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label Aran Weight in “Poppy”) just feel so yummy. The pattern is fantastic and the yarn is divine (don’t you love this color?), and I know that when I do get it done, I am going to wear the heck out of it.

raveled

I want to weave something special as a Christmas present, but I hadn’t used my loom (a Schacht Cricket) in ages (something like 18 months). So I decided it was time for a little practice, starting with some kid-sized scarves.

This one is my first effort. I wish I’d made it a little narrower and a little longer, but I’m happy enough with it. I had very little of the warp yarn and I used every last inch of it.

I used this for the warp:

my handspun FLUFF South American Fine Wool in “Amandla” – I had about 95 yards leftover from some mittens I made a couple of years ago.

I used this for the weft:

Some of my very early handspun, from Funky Carolina handcarded batts in “Dragon Skin” – I don’t know how much yardage I used, but I still have plenty for another scarf.

I love how the colors of the FLUFF are having a party in the fringe.

Other than wishing it were longer and narrower, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. The drape is great, I like the long subtle stripes, and I’m pleased with the improvement in my selvedges. These are by far the best edges I’ve ever had.

Weaving is so much fun, y’all.

raveled

I saw this sweet embroidered tea towel calendar kit light up my Pinterest a few weeks ago, and I had to have it. It reminded me of the tea towel calendars my grandmother used to have (except hers weren’t embroidered and they always featured cats). Unfortunately, the kit was sold out, but I got on the email list to be updated when it was back in stock, and when I got the notification that it was restocked, I snagged it right away.

I’m very excited about this project, which I plan to work on over the Christmas holidays – something fun to look forward to. I expect it to take me longer than it should, because I am very slow at embroidery!

Kit by Curious Doodles on etsy.

This cross-stitch pattern has been all over Pinterest this season, just like it was this time last year. I bought it last year when it was on sale for Black Friday (as all her patterns are again this weekend – 20% off!). I worked on it off-and-on it December and January – and then I lost it! I’ve been wondering for months where it was, and have been looking for it a lot lately. I have felt so sad every time I’ve seen it pop up on Pinterest, knowing that I was more than halfway done with mine but might not get to finish it in time to hang for winter.

Then today, when I was looking for something else, lo and behold, there it was! I’m so excited to finish it! I’m very happy that I saved the deer for last – that’s the part I’m most looking forward to doing.

The pattern is from sewingseed on etsy. She has many cute patterns. I have two more of them (including one that I got as a kit), but I had wanted to finish this one first, so I haven’t cracked into those yet.

Cross-stich was actually my first craft. My 6th grade math teacher taught our class how to do it as part of a combined math/social studies project. We each had to pick a country we were interested in, then graph it out on graph paper, and then cross-stitch it. The teacher got hoops for all of us, and we got to pick out what color embroidery thread we wanted to use.

It looks like the dye lots of my thread didn’t match up well, and I also didn’t cross all my x’s in the same direction. I still love it, and I think that teacher was pretty cool for assigning this. The local newspaper thought it was pretty cool too – they actually came to the school and did a story on the project, and my picture was in the paper, stitching (I still have a copy somewhere).

It was another seven years before I took cross-stitch up for real, and until this little deer pattern, I hadn’t done it in more than five years. I’m enjoying dabbling in it again!