My favorite baby gift

I've given away quite a few of these combinations, and here's another package that went to one of our favorite local farmers, from whom we buy raw milk.. The yarn is Meilenweit Multieffekt by Lana Grossa... typical sock yarn chosen for the bright colors. I won't mention from whom it was purchased because I was extremely irritated at how long it took to arrive, no response to my email query, and then an excuse that ...... but, I babble on.

Here's a shot of the finished socks. I call them the Terrible Twos Tootsies. I loved the way the striping turned out. I knit one sock with thread pulled from the inside of the ball, and the second sock from the outside, thus reversing the striping order, and switching the order of the red and yellow stripes.



The bird is a special treat and you can see the entire collection at Ouray Toys where I buy them. Great service from these people. You can order online. The birds are by the Audubon Society and have authentic bird calls built-in. Just squeeze the back-end. My favorite, of course, is the Meadowlark, since they're our backyard bird around here.

Socks for the Royal Gardener

These are knit in Opal's Hundertwasser and the colorway is perfect for a gardening sort of person. The socks are great inside of a pair of Crocs, and even if your feet get wet, they'll stay warm because wool is that way.

Hubby doesn't like posing for pictures and this photo pretty much says it all as he prances through the offices after posing a few seconds too long by his standards. Har!

Hey, you want new socks, you model them for the Queen's sock blog. It's the rule!

The models

A few pictures of knitted gift recipients. I was very surprised that the kids were as pleased as they were. One niece was really thrilled down to her soles. I didn't expect that. Considering that a pair of socks takes, on average, twenty hours to knit - well, it was very gratifying!

Christmas loot

All the frantic knitting is done! Here are pictures of a few of the gifts I made.

Knucks for various friends and family members - the first two are made using the Fetching pattern from knitty.com.

Here's a shot of various pairs of knucks and wool socks for nieces and nephews. All of them were pretty thrilled, which was rather heartwarming. We always worry, don't we, that the gift will be a dud? So disheartening after all those hours of work. I have to say that the knucks were lifesavers in getting the projects done by Christmas Eve. They only take about six hours to knit up compared to around twenty hours for the socks.

Hiding Gifts

Where is she hiding all those socks she's been working on forever??

Knitting and writing

Here's how my spot at the dining table has looked most of the month. The SIP changes, the coffee cup, and maybe the tablecloth. I've been trying to stay focused on National Novel Writing Month, so the basic set-up doesn't move. The knitting helps me with imagineering, the coffee is for my muses (yes, I have two and both are java fiends), and the Alphasmart is my constant companion. I can write an entire book on three double A batteries. So how is it going? I'm on schedule with Christmas socks. I'm 24,000 words behind on the book. I have until the last day of November to cough up a total of 50,000 words. I wonder how many stitches a sock has. And I wonder why I'm writing at the dinner table instead of in my office where I have a desk. Not that I have a choice about it. The muses are in control of that.

Step by step

Those Christmas gifts are getting knit. Here, a couple more, their mates are OTNs. Is it time for carols yet? What about some holiday cheer? These kids are getting tired of just watching me crank out socks. Mom is sooooooooo boring.

Tiny stash enhancement

I know, I know. I swore I wouldn't buy any more yarn until I put a dent in my existing stash. But, I had to get some dark blue to finish my nephew's kiss-my-big-toe socks, and I so loved the Trekking that I got last time, I had to buy some more, and then the Cashsilk screamed out my name and I knew I had to make myself a pair of those gorgeous red gloves out of .... which knitting book were those in? Anyway, I've made good progress on the gift socks for Christmas. How are you all doing with holiday gifts?

Coveting lace

I spent a little time going through pattern books looking for fast holiday gifts. I'm always drawn to lace, and wish I could see and count well enough to crank out a nice shawl or scarf. Like the ones in Victorian Lace Today. So Old Buddy, here in his favorite pose, kept me company while I drooled over the pictures and patterns, and then cast aside any crazy ideas of casting on. He just drooled all over my wool scarf, perfectly content to let me have my little fantasies. He's a grand old cat, Buddy is.

Tam-ptation

I couldn't resist anymore. After seeing posts of tams knit by Susan Wittig Albert on her blog, getting the latest holiday news with tam-wearing models on the cover, and discovering an easy-peasy recipe in one of my knitting books..... well, I decided I'd take the cosmic hint and try one as a gift. It is holiday knitting time, after all, and I have nieces - oh, so many nieces.

This pattern is for an advanced beginner. I can handle that. I did wonder why the "destructions" didn't mention anything about joining the cast-on stitches to knit in the round, but hey, I can punt. It called for a 16 inch circular needle. I had a 13 1/2. So far so good, right? Wrong. The 13" cable is far too long to join the stitches in the round. Grrrr. Was this pattern written by an advanced beginner? I ask you. So, I put the stitches on three dpns, and started knitting . After getting the K1P1 band taken care of and increasing until my dpns couldn't hold anymore stitches, I switched to the aforementioned circular needles. It's gone relatively well ever since.

More later after I get a bit more done on this burgundy mohair tam.

Back to the future

There are hidden benefits to stash-busting. I discovered incompleted projects, some of them very old. One such was the two-color vest I had attempted in my teens and which I subsequently discovered in my mother's centuries-old stash. I took it home with me, and have been keeping my eyes open for matching wool ever since. Well, okay, I must not have been working too consciously on finding said wool, because I found both gray and red in my own inventory. Almost perfect matches really. So this teen vest of mine - was I ever that little - gets finished and then one of my truly little nieces can have a gift. Curious thing that's it's so modern looking. The needles are old aluminum things I wouldn't dream of using, but I keep them because they're my very first pair of knitting needles. Nostalgia, you know.

Trekking

This was my new weekend project, a pair of socks tentatively for a Christmas gift, although I like the way they're evolving enough to consider them for myself. I've never tried Trekking (XXL) before, being a die-hard Opal fan, but I have to admit I might like this yarn a tiny bit better for its softness. The label reads "SchurWolle" which is new wool, and I speculate that this results in more loft and a softer yarn. The fabric has a lovely feel. I like the subtle striping, too. Plus, I've decided to add a little burgundy to my life, so that's just an added excuse to tuck them into my own sock drawer. I'm going to try to finish these by the weekend.

Tangible Love

I don’t always like giving my knitting away, because few people really realize the amount of time involved in creating a silly pair of socks. Twenty hours for me on average. I’ve thought about adding a little note-card that reads, “20 Hours of Handknit Love” to go along with a gift, especially to my relatives. Would that be too tacky, do you think? To point out how much time I’ve just spent on them? Yes, I suppose it would, especially since I’d knit anyway, whether as a gift for them or not.

And then there are the pals who DO appreciate a hand-made gift, and who are exquisite gift givers themselves. These are the people who get gifts like these from me. Where the entire assemblage becomes a project, like staging a play. One looks for the perfect box, and the extra little trinket to tuck in with the gift, and of course, one uses a leaf or two of tissue to declare how special the gift… and the recipient. Then one imagines with a little twinge of joy, the delight when the gift is opened. That’s half the fun.

Whether you wear your knitting or give it away, anything handknit is tangible love. ~ Bruce Hallmark