The Last of My Christmas Knitting

I finally finished the last Christmas knitting projects. These mitts are going to friends across town, and no, they probably won't arrive by Christmas. C'est la vie. They are made with Elann's Esprit stretchy cotton yarn, a clone of Cascade's Fixation, done on size 4US needles. The pattern is from one of the Elannites, and goes really quickly. They take so little yarn that you can get 3 pairs from 2 balls of yarn.


Before I wrapped and packed the other knitted goodies, I took last photos. The ones I took of the 3 cabled scarves didn't have enough light, so there's no last picture of the blocked items. The scarf is for our daughter-by love who's now in Alaska, mother of the boys who are getting the hats. This is in Cascade's Di.vé Autonno yarn, done in brioche stitch. It took 3 full skeins; I think I had about 6 inches left. The yarn is absolutely wonderful: soft to the touch, lightweight, and a delight wrapped around the neck.


Here are the finished hats for the boys. You've seen the top 2 before, and the 3rd one is for a 2-year old, so I left off the cords for safety reasons and added a pompom. As with the other 2, the base yarn is Nashua's Creative Focus Superwash worsted, worked double on size 10 needles. The stripes are done in TLC's Wiggles yarn, also worked double. The 'Superman' color combination just had to be done!



I can't resist tossing in a picture of my Caps to the Capitol contribution. Making baby hats is so much fun and instant gratification! Done with baby acrylic yarn, on size 7s, these 6 will make our group's contribution total 80 hats.





For those of you who need a last-minute Stash Enhancement eXpedition, the Highly Enabling Yarn Pusher known as WEBS is having a year-end blowout sale. I looked and passed. Oddly enough, just last night I ordered some more of their Stockbridge yarn. A couple of months ago I started their Falling Leaves pattern as a scarf, finally had nearly 3 feet of it done, and at last awoke to the main problem: An 8in wide scarf is too wide for a scarf (at least, in this climate) and way too narrow for a shawl/stole. So I frogged the whole thing, 2 skeins' worth (sigh), and with more yarn, I'm going to make it at least 2ft wide, but not the 6ft length per the pattern. For a vertically-challenged person like me, 5ft is a better length.

I also discovered a major crisis at WEBS: their Valley Yarns hard bamboo circular needles are a seriously endangered species, not currently available. This is nearly catastrophic, since these clones of the pricey Crystal Palace bamboo circs, at half the price, are my very most favorite needles. The Customer Service folks say they don't know when (if?) they'll have more. Finding Crystal Palace circs is a major effort, though the LYS I visited in Mesa, AZ, carries them.

Midnight just wants to know why she's not getting petted. She spends quite a bit of time 'helping' me when I'm at the computer. She gets so excited when I pet her that she parades back and forth in front of the monitor, and won't be still. This seriously hampers my time at Sudoku!