Mom's Birthday

I made this neck warmer for mom for her birthday. This was SG#1 in my gift count and I was glad to have it done early before any Christmas presents ... I'm still not done with everything I had hoped to finish by this point. It turned out a lot higher than I thought it would, but I just love the little leaf ties and baby cables. This also can be a hat if you pull the ties tight to close the top, but doubt Mom will ever wear it that way. It doesn't get that cold in Huntington Beach :)

progress

no pictures to share, but I have been knitting! SG#4 (earthy tones) was giving me problems, so I figured out something new ... SG#4 is now coded WW ... and it is 50% done. I gifted SG#1 this weekend; it was actually a birthday present for mom, so once she sends me a picture I'll post it. I was distracted from taking the picture myself this weekend. I have also made good progress on Wes' stocking ... I have finished the top and two of the five patterns. He is back on night shift so there is lots of time for knitting and staying up way too late, which is how I have gotten this much done already. I'm going to try and take some pictures tonight to post, then this will be a lot more interesting. Work has gotten busy too, so that is keeping me from regular updates as well and the holiday weekend was so fun, but I didn't get much knitting done at all except Sunday night while Wes was at work.
Wes, me, Kristen, Luke, Dad and Mom at the Anaheim Ducks vs. New Jersey Devils game on Friday, Nov. 24

E-bar Madness

this weekend was completely insane - Friday was Lissa's birthday dinner, Saturday Wes and I both got up early to run 7 miles with Tia, then drove out to Canyon Country for lunch with in-laws, then to a Thrivent customer appreciation event also in Santa Clarita, then to Simi Valley for a CLU alumni homecoming event at Elephant Bar. E-bar was especially busy and fun and wonderfully filled with fun people so I was very grateful for a relaxing Sunday at home (poor Wes had to go to work though!). Spent most of Sunday cooking and knitting and I completed Secret Gift #1! I don't want to post a picture of the whole thing because you never know who could be reading this, but here is a little teaser.
Wes is making Monday-night basketball part of his regular routine which is fine with me because that means Monday-night knitting and catching up on TiVo is part of my routine now too :) right now I'm thinking I'd like to get some good progress on SG#2 tonight ... but we'll see what I feel like working on after the run.

good use of time

yesterday I got out of work a little early because I had to drop off a package at FedEx (we'd missed the deadline for the truck to pick it up at the office), and the FedEx/Kinkos is very close to our house. I went home and figured out what yarn I needed for my little projects and headed out to AFY before it closed. I got yarn for two more projects, both of which shouldn't' take me too long. Once I got home, I cast on right away for Secret Gift #1 and started knitting. The pattern required what the patter-writer called a "baby cable" and it involved k2tog and then k again into the front of the first stitch and I was a little confused by this, so I just c1 instead and it looked the same in my hands as the picture of the finished product. I think using the cable needle slows down the process a little bit, but I would rather have nice, neat cables and not be frustrated. I have had a problem with knitting back into the front and backs of stitches before, so I might need to have Lois help me in a little while on this project, because there is an eyelet row and an i-cord/tassel-type embellishment that calls for some interesting stitches and I am a little apprehensive about them! But for now I am on the part of the project that is easy and quick so hopefully I can have the majority of this project done in a day or so, it is very small compared to my big sweater and no weird shaping yet so it is going fast. (picture is of my gauge swatch for Secret Gift #1 (white/green) which I did while watching the new Keith Urban video on CMT)

UPDATE (2:40pm): things are pretty busy at work today so I had planned to just take a quick half-hour and do as much knitting as I could in that time. I made really good progress in my shortened lunch ... so good that I was almost to the end of my ball of yarn, so I decided to hang out a little longer and finish off the ball before I went back to my desk. Here's a picture of one full ball of yarn on Secret Gift #1. I am loving the baby cables ... I want to find new ways to incorporate them into other patterns when a 2x2 rib is included. I am now more than half-way finished with this project (good because I bought the last two balls of yarn in this color and don't' know what I would have done if I needed to buy an additional ball!) so hopefully after a good run and some dinner tonight I can settle down and get all the easy parts done, then I can make a lunchtime visit to Lois at AFY and get some help on the harder stuff.