A Chrismas Yarn...

Well on the 23rd of December I quickly finished up Dad's socks, the Gentlemen's Half Hose pattern from Nancy Bush's Vintage Socks while finishing off the Christmas baking (cookies & lavosh) and packing for my train the next morning. I snapped a quick picture before they were soaked.
I had also recently finished my mittens while at the Purple Purl on Sunday. The girls have convinced me to write up the pattern. Yummy malabrigo on 4mm needles. They have proven to be very warm.
Christmas eve saw me off on the train to Ottawa. Dad picked me up from the Fallowfield station and we headed over to Nanny and Poppa's to say Merry Christmas before heading off to the farm. When we got to the farm we had a bit of supper, watched Christmas movies and had a visit from the Christmas eve mouse! Isn't s/he cute?!
Christmas morning saw the opening of gifts. Mom received the hat she is modeling below. It is my own handspun and my own impromptu pattern. She also received a lovely skien of malabrigo sock yarn in a rust orange to knit herself up something nice.
Dad's feet are seen here modeling his socks. They fit him perfectly. The only change I made to the pattern was to make them half an inch longer. Turns out that made them the perfect size! They are just the type of socks he said he wanted, nice and long to peep over the edge of his work boots. He's requested a nice pair of dress socks for next Christmas in a navy blue colour.
Here is a picture of my Christmas booty. My mom made me a hat, scarf and mittens. They are very nice and I finally have a hat that is not a toque or baseball hat that actually looks good on me. The mittens are very warm. Trust me I tried them out doing the activites in the pictures further below. The thermos is from my Dad and should keep soup or stew piping hot for up to 24 hours. It can also keep things cool for the same length of time. The purple and green yarn is from my sister. The purple yarn is Briggs and Little. The colour is gorgeous, but B&L is not known for their softness. Hopefully it will soften up with a little washing. I was thinking of making a throw out of it for my couch. I have a pattern that I think will do nicely. The green yarn is Indigo Moon sock yarn in the colourway cedar. I almost bought myself a skein of this on Sunday and am really glad the little voice in my head told me I could wait. These two skeins will become knee-high socks. Now I'll just have to find a skirt to wear them with. She also got me earrings but those were in my ears already and hence why they are not in the picture.
Here is a picture of me in my gettup from my mom (if you look really carefully you can see some of the earrings) and my aunt who also received a scarf and hat from my mom.

After all the food on Christmas day and the sleigh ride, I spent Boxing day outside snowshoeing (Dad caught up to me, I took a detour to the pond). And then I tried a little cross-country skiiing with my Uncle. (click to enlarge any of the photos)


Happy Holidays!

It's that time of year again........

....where the Christmas baking must be done. These are the gingersnaps I've been working on today. I used fresh ginger instead of dried (I would have put a whole lot more ginger in too, if I didn't have to share with people who prefer the blander version) and I changed just under half the flour to whole wheat (I use Red Fife because it tastes nutty instead of bitter). They turned out very well.

I have been working on a scarf for my sister. She bought the yarn and picked out the stitch pattern and I've turned it into a scarf pattern. You can't see a lot of the pattern in this picture because it's not stretched out, but it does give you a vague idea.
It has been cold here lately so I've started making myself a winter set which will include a scarf, mittens and a toque (haven't started the toque yet). I started the scarf then realized I should probably make the mittens and toque so that whatever yarn is left from those could go into the scarf and that way I won't have lots of yarn leftover. The yarn is malabrigo and it is a gorgeous colourway. It is grey and white with hints of purple and blue.
I've almost forgot to show the rush toque and gloves I made while I was up in SSM to keep my fingers and head warm. The gloves are the first pair I have ever made.

The Vintage Yarn Swap

My vintage swap box arrived just before I left for Sault Ste. Marie and TC was getting right in there digging into the box. I took me a while to figure out why he was so excited.....
...until he found what he was looking for. It didn't last very long. He had the catnip guts removed and was rolling in them pretty soon after this picture was taken.
Piper also got a little something in the box too!
And this was also found in the box!!!!!!! So many goodies!
The coffee was excellent as is the tea and as for the other snacks, I can vouch for their tastiness as well. The movie "Cold Comfort Farm" was very good and the alpaca fibre is being spun. I've almost finished spinning my singles and it spins like a dream!
It was a great swap!

Home again

The lack of blogging due to the month of November was mainly because I was in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario for work without internet access where I was staying (okay there was but I didn't find that out until the second to last day I was staying there).

I did a lot of work on Dad's socks. I realized the socks I was working on where the yarn was picked here had even less yardage than the ones from last year and were going to end up looking like ankle socks on him. So I went back to another pair I had started for him ages ago. They are proper man socks that are long enough in the leg that they can be worn comfortably in boots. They even have some nice calf shaping and look nice and manly. They are also made of superwash wool and have a thread of nylon running through them so they should last a long time. The pattern is Gentleman's Half House from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. I had plenty of time to work on them up in the Soo. One as you can see is complete and I am at the heel on the second one. They are very roomy on me so I hope they should fit him perfectly.
My green silk lace went under reconstruction. As I was knitting it up in my design I realized it was too complicated and was not showing off the colourway (and the purpose of this piece of lace is to show off the gorgeous colourway). So I switched to a very simple ostrich pattern that I think does an excellent job at focusing all the attention on the yarn.

My sister was in town recently and she was wearing a toque I had made that I had never gotten a picture of her in. So I took the opportunity while I had it. Too bad she wasn't wearing that red sweater I made that I have been waiting for a picture of her in for quite some time. Mojo, if you are serious about stockings for your kilt you may want to take a picture of her in her sweater for me, please!
I can only show a little tidbit of the next finished object as the person it is for reads this blog. It is made from my own handspun!
There are some other things I realize I forgot to blog about that happened before I left for SSM and they will be the topics of future posts (like the vintage yarn swap I participated in).