Christmas Knitting wrapup

The holidays are almost over (we're just waiting 'til midnight so we can go to bed :). And I finished the major knitting projects of my first Christmas as a knitter! So without further ado...

Carl's hat - has already been posted a couple of times, but here's one more action shot, at the Oregon coast on Christmas eve:

Dad's scarf - I haven't blogged this one before - but I got the yarn in Japan, not knowing what I'd do with it. I never did manage to post part II of my Japan trip travelogue (and wow, that was > 5 months ago now!), but I visited a wonderful "natural dying" yarn store called Mother Earth, which was actually rather near the vendor's factory in Yamanashi. It was pretty funny, having my rather proper male sales engineer (who knew nothing about knitting) translate yarn labels - I really do need to finish blogging it. Anyway, eventually (actually, in Arizona in October)the yarn decided to be a scarf, in a simple lace rib stitch. I held two strands together throughout - always a medium brown, alternating a light tan and dark brown held with it. Hopefully the ribby-ness makes it warmish, although even doubled the yarn was rather thin.
Oh, by the way, if anyone reading this can send me a pic of the scarf stitching closeup, I'd appreciate it - forgot to take one...

Mom's bag - (Ravelry project link) - this is the big, modular project that I couldn't post about since she reads my blog. Many many shells! Pretty easy knit (especially since you don't need to weave in the gazillion ends that well, since it is felted), though a tad tedious. It was odd to be knitting a felted item on only size 8 needles (to keep the stitch pattern visible, I presume), but it worked out fine. Note the blue and gray color scheme, of course (Mom is a huge Civil War buff).

final pose:

Closer up views of it post felting (including one with it next to a felted bowl she made me for Christmas!). I love the bottom of the bag, where the shells come together - so symmetrical!









(did I mention I was running around the house, back and forth to the laundry room, felting it on 12/23 while everyone watched football? And that it blocked (on a bucket balanced on a table lamp on a garbage can!) and mostly dried through Christmas eve night? And it was still a wee bit damp when opened Christmas morning. Talk about last minute finishing!)

Here it is after finishing, but before felting.





Finally, a couple of pics of it under construction. It took basically a little over a month all told, though I wasn't working as hard on it as I could have. I might be tempted to make one for myself after I've had time to knock out a few smaller things :). I like the one one the right, since Mom made me those mitts almost exactly a year ago, right before I started knitting.









and finally, a picture from our impromptu day trip to the coast on Christmas eve. May you have a peaceful and/or exciting New Year!

Odds and ends and holidays!

Well, I'm briefly back from extended blogging hiatus. Referencing the previous post, I finished all the modular pieces (reduced the number of repeats, so it was actually 76 not 84) and most of the finishing on the big modular work. It's actually blocking upstairs, hopefully will dry before Christmas day :).

I got 4 of the minor gift "A" done and shipped off 3 of them (the others will become a New Year's gift instead of Christmas), plus the dragon scarf and gorilla vest. Phew!

Plus, a couple weeks back we went to a geocaching holiday party with a "white elephant" secret santa exchange. We were supposed to bring something <$10 and possibly funny. So I busted into my stash, whipped out the extra-bulky yarn I used for my first scarf, and (using guideline from the book "Knitting Rules" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka the Yarn Harlot)), managed to create a hat that actually was fought over at the gift exchange.

So, FO: White eleph-hat
Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-ease thick 'n'quick, ~0.55 skeins oatmeal-ish color, and small amounts of blue and green.
Needles: US 10.5 circular (a longish one to magic loop)
General scheme: CO 48 stitches with MC. Work in 1x1 rib for a couple of inches (I wish I'd done it longer to make it easier to turn up at the brim). Then I did purl rounds in the main color with 8 2-stitch knit vertical stripes alternating green and blue. I did some twists in these, but the yarn is so bulky, they didn't really show. I made bobbins for the vertical stripes, and twisted them with the main color as it went across - sort of a hybrid intarsia / fair isle thing. Knit til it was as tall as Andy's hand, then decreased (K2tog before the stripes) so that the stripes came together at the top of the hat.

Oh, and what did we get in the white elephant gift exchange? Why, a beer mug night light, of course!

Here's the dragon scarf; and I can't show the gorilla vest yet, because there's kind of a cute surprise on it :)

In non-knitting news, my parents and brother are spending the holidays here. We've had a nice dinner downtown, hit Powells books twice now, did a hike, and went to a u-cut tree farm hunting the perfect Christmas Tree. We found it! I don't have a good picture of it all decorated - here is the before shot, though (with Carl cleaning up the result of a small overwatering issue)

And here are a few pics from our hike to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge the other day.

<- Mom and Dad in front of waterfall...

Carl contemplating waterfall (note the hat!) ->


Full view of the waterfall:


And finally, a zoomed shot of Table Mountain, which we had a great view of on the way back down the trail. It's across the gorge on the Washington side, and I'm very pleased with how our new camera's 10x zoom performed.


Happy Holidays!