10 things that make me happy

1. After 3 days of non-stop snowing and the resulting 2 feet of snow, I am now sure that we’ll get a White Christmas
2. A pretty gold and bronze Christmas tree



3. Setting up my little paper village on the mantel



4. Knowing that all the Christmas shopping is done
5. Finally making headway on my Calvert. All that’s left is finishing the 2 fronts; I’m at the armholes now, knitting the back yoke and the sleeves and a little bit of assembly.



6. The quickest knit, a headband for my manager’s birthday which she really liked. I’ll definitely be making more of these. Ravelry details here.



7. Knowing that even though I couldn’t find a single copy of the latest Knit 1 anywhere, someone on Ravelry bought one for me and is going to be shipping it to me.
8. Sewing the last 2 pillow covers for the couch. I had fun with both of these and made them a bit more involved than the others.



9. Cutting up fabrics for 20 new box bags



10. Getting another quilt ready for quilting

Time for a little destashing

It is time to make some room in the yarn/fabric stash closet. Fabric is spilling over and about to enter into the yarn shelves. Please have a look at the stash and let me know if something strikes your fancy!

More details as well as prices are listed on my Ravelry destash page. If you’re not on Ravelry, comment on this post and I’ll give you the price and any other information you would need. Thanks for looking!

Random

Thank you everyone for all the scrappy log cabin love!

• Did lots of sewing this weekend:

• • cushion covers for our couch

• • binding on my pinwheel quilt

• Got ready for Christmas with decorating the tree and putting the Christmas village up, on the mantle now that we have one!

• Did some knitting:

• Finished the latest sock yarn square

• Cast on for a last minute birthday gift (Drops Headband – ravelry details)

Additional notes:

There’s one more pillow cover I want to sew for the couch, but I need to go buy a pillow form first. I used this tutorial for all the pillows, adapting it to my needs. They’re not fancy but they’ll do the trick, and I love the fabrics I used!

I started sewing the binding on my Pinwheel Quilt, I’ve sewn the front side of the binding, now I have to handstitch the back side of the binding. That might take a while…

I wore my Calorimetry to work last week, and my supervisor really liked it. Since it’s her birthday tomorrow I thought that I’d make her one. I wanted to try this other headband pattern by DROPS, so that’s what she’ll get! I’m already almost halfway through and I wont see her until Tuesday, so I should have it done by then!

Scrappy log cabin blocks

A few nights ago I felt like sewing. Of course, I did not try to work on my Stacked Coin or my 40 Fat Quarter quilts but decided to start something new! The more WIPs, the merrier, right?

I wanted to do something with my smaller charm squares (an assortment of 2″x2″ squares of random fabrics) and my scraps of fabrics. I always love how these look sewn as log cabin blocks so I started sewing. One square, 1 piece of fabric. Sew, trim and on to the next one, without trying to match the colors or anything like that. I knew that even if individually some blocks might look kind of garish, over all they’d work out together.

After 2 evenings of sewing I have 46 blocks of various sizes. I will have to trim a bunch down to the smallest size but overall I like the effect. I decided that I’d use one of the fabrics I bought on my way back from Quebec last weekend as the borders around each block. I think that orange works well with the blocks as it pulls from the yellows and reds I used in most blocks.

I have to admit that I have no idea when I will get to the next part of the quilt since I have a bunch more box bags to make (I sold quite a few of them already – thank you!) and I have to sew pillow covers for our new couch! And let’s not remind of the other two quilts I am working on!

My favorite block!

Trip to Québec

(To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)

On our trip to Québec there was:

• 12 moose

Yes, 12. I’d never seen a moose before that and it was a real treat to see so many. We had to be really careful driving because it was night time and with all the moose on the side of the road we didn’t want to risk hitting one. Because it was night time I didn’t get to take a picture and on our way back we didn’t see any. Maybe next time!

• 11, 10, 9° F, temperatures in the mountains of Maine as we were driving up

• Only 8 rows knit on my Herringbone Rib sock

• 7 long hours of driving (each way)

• 6 family members

We spent the weekend with my parents, my brother, his girlfriend and my two lovely nieces.

• 5 inches knit on my sock yarn square

• 4, the birthday my niece Naomi celebrated

• 3 skeins of sock yarn

I picked these up at the post office as we were leaving, so they kind of count, right! This is the yarn I received for the Sundara Artist’s Choice sock club.

• 2 turkeys crossing the road

• 1 fabric store

The Fabric Garden, really nice quilting shop, much bigger than my LQS. I made a few purchases…

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This is for Abigail: you mentioned in my last post being interested in one of my box bags, please check your spam folder if you’re still interested!

FO Friday

I’m finally getting around to finishing the recap of what I’ve worked on in November. After this post it will be time to move on and leave November behind.

So in November I finished three pairs of socks, we’ve already established that in another post. But not only did I do that but I finished a bigger garment, my first one since my ill-fated Fitted Tank. I came back with Stitches East with the Celtic Vest kit from Fleece Artist and cast on almost right away. I knit and knit some more and before I knew it, I had a finished garment, something that wasn’t a pair of socks!

I have worn it once already and will wear it again soon!

I added 8 stitches to the cast on aware from someone else’s experience that 10 stitches was 2 stitches too many. I wasn’t sure all along that I would have enough yarn but I had plenty and could probably have done each front a row or two longer. I’m happy with the vest even if the rows pull a bit across the chest. I’m quite pleased with how my new pin works well with the vest as well. More details here on Ravelry.

Another big achievement of November was a new set of box bags. Jewel from Yo! Knit special-ordered one from me so I took the opportunity to sew a few more. A friend of mine is going to start carrying them in her shop so I figured I’d get a head start on making them! It took me 3 days but in the end I have 7 beautiful box bags.

The top three ones are the small size and the bottom 4 are the large size. The one in the middle (Kaffe Fassett Pansy print) has gone off to Jewel but the others are available for purchase, they don’t all have to go to my friend’s store! I have individual photos of them here as well.

I debated for quite a while as to where I would sell my box bags if I started making more. I was thinking about etsy and I was thinking about my friend’s shop, the Iron Horse Farm gift shop in Sherborn, MA. I decided to go ahead and bring my bags to the shop but that I would still show them here if psome of you were interested. I’ll always be available for custom orders as well. So once in a while you’ll see me post a photo of my bags, I hope you don’t mind!

WIP Wednesday

I currently have 3 knits on the needles, 1 big, 1 medium and 1 small

Big

I know this doesn’t look a whole lot different then last time but I’ve finally knit long enough and now it’s time for the interesting bit. In a couple rows I get to start the front lace. It will be interesting to keep track of all the little details like lace, armholes, etc.

Medium

When I came back from Stitches I wanted to try out my new Hiya Hiya circulars so I cast on for plain stockinette sock out of my skein of Hello Yarn in Sour. After knitting the toe I put it aside to work on other things, this until the latest Interweave Knits came out and Kristi Schueler’s Herringbone Rib sock pattern caught my attention. At first I wasn’t sure if the pattern would work out but after a couple inches I think it does.

Small

I cast on for another square for the Michele Project. It makes for an easy on the go project and I always have it with me. The yarn is leftovers from my On the Run socks that I finished back in April.

This weekend I’m going to Canada to visit family and all three projects will make nice travel companions.

12 months / 12 pairs of socks

Since I started knitting socks I had this goal to try to finish a pair of socks per month. 2008 was no different and on the last day of November I finished my twelvth pair of socks.

Last night I wove in the ends to the second Twisted Tweed sock and now have a completed pair.

Isn’t it funny how both socks spiraled identically but that the width of the blue stripe is wider in the sock on the right?

I knit the pattern like my usual, toe-up with a short-row heel and I used Yarn Lust BFL sock in Tiffany. The socks are a bit big so I’m going to see if they fit my mom, who is the lucky recipient to all my too big socks, I do hope they fit her! Ravelry details here.

12 months / 12 pairs

January Charades

February Firestarters

March Ripples

April Red Dwarf 1 and 2 & On the Run

May Simply Cables

July Kureyon Sock

September Tipsy

November Lollipop Sky, Snowflake Lace and Twisted Tweed

Now the question is… which sock am I going to knit next!