High Fiber—Happy Holidays, Part One

Remember Brenda and her scarves from two weeks ago? Lynda was bitten by the bug!

The pattern is available from Tahki Stacy Charles and is called Filatura di Crosa. She has become the queen of scarves, and has her gift list taken care of. We had our knitting group meeting a few days ago. This shows what happens when you go to a group meeting or participate in a group online: You find out things.

This week I finished up the Daisy Chain quilt. I sewed the binding on and ran it through the washer and dryer. This was my first quilt with wool batting, and I love how it crinkled up. It's warm, too!

A more important project was the Prayer Cardi. It's done!

The Prayer Cardi was started by DSIL when she was ill with cancer. She asked me to finish it for her. I'll try to get a photo of it being worn. In the meantime, here's something Christmasy:

This tree is a metal frame covered with 1,200 8" squares knitted by several knitting groups and is on display at St. Aldhelm's Church in Poole, Dorset, UK. After Christmas, the squares will be sewn together to make blankets for the needy in Sri Lanka and Romania. You can read more about it  here.

This week will be spent cooking and cleaning, with time out for Silver Sneakers, the exercise class DH and I go to twice a week, and Sunny's and my final visit to the nursing home before Christmas. Friday DS2 and his DW fly in for the holidays. I can hardly wait!

What's on my needles: Lots of UFOs, including the Yei Figures Bag, which has been moving along slowly.
What's on my iPad: Christmas music, and finishing up The Skies of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
What's my app of the week: The NORAD Santa app, of course! I will be using it to track Santa's progress as he spreads toys and holiday cheer across the globe!
What's in my wine glass:  Gold Rush Red from Val D'Or. Another nice one

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad. (I used the Notes app to write it.) No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.

High Fiber—Happy Holidays, Part One

Remember Brenda and her scarves from two weeks ago? Lynda was bitten by the bug!

The pattern is available from Tahki Stacy Charles and is called Filatura di Crosa. She has become the queen of scarves, and has her gift list taken care of. We had our knitting group meeting a few days ago. This shows what happens when you go to a group meeting or participate in a group online: You find out things.

This week I finished up the Daisy Chain quilt. I sewed the binding on and ran it through the washer and dryer. This was my first quilt with wool batting, and I love how it crinkled up. It's warm, too!

A more important project was the Prayer Cardi. It's done!

The Prayer Cardi was started by DSIL when she was ill with cancer. She asked me to finish it for her. I'll try to get a photo of it being worn. In the meantime, here's something Christmasy:

This tree is a metal frame covered with 1,200 8" squares knitted by several knitting groups and is on display at St. Aldhelm's Church in Poole, Dorset, UK. After Christmas, the squares will be sewn together to make blankets for the needy in Sri Lanka and Romania. You can read more about it  here.

This week will be spent cooking and cleaning, with time out for Silver Sneakers, the exercise class DH and I go to twice a week, and Sunny's and my final visit to the nursing home before Christmas. Friday DS2 and his DW fly in for the holidays. I can hardly wait!

What's on my needles: Lots of UFOs, including the Yei Figures Bag, which has been moving along slowly.
What's on my iPad: Christmas music, and finishing up The Skies of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
What's my app of the week: The NORAD Santa app, of course! I will be using it to track Santa's progress as he spreads toys and holiday cheer across the globe!
What's in my wine glass:  Gold Rush Red from Val D'Or. Another nice one

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad. (I used the Notes app to write it.) No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.

High Fiber— Countdown to Holidays

Another busy week! The mittens are done:

I adapted the pattern Mitones Iveños from Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski. I changed the tip by using the round-toe decreases, because the thumb ended up in an awkward place. I dont know if I misread the pattern, but the thumbs stuck out at the sides instead of being on the side of the palm. The matched decreases caused the mitten to twist when worn. Rather than frog the mitten back to the top of The cuff and reknitting with the thumb placed further over, I just took out the top inch or so and did six evenly spaced dec's on each rnd until I had six sts left. Then I ran the yarn through the sts and fastened it off. This made the pattern rotate  to a slightly different position, but the mittens are comfortable to wear.

I blocked them using the leg part of my large sock blockers.

The yarn was Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted  in Coal, Cloud, Cranberry and Semolina. It was nice to work with. I used the two-circular-needle method.

Friday evening we took the annual long drive to Pleasant Grove for the NOC Assistants reunion. This group is made up of the volunteers who worked for the German National Olympic Committee during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Here are the members of the group who attended this year:

During the Olympics, we worked in the Olympic Village, running errands for and driving the Committee Members. Those of us who had spouses brought them to the party. The party was fun.

The "Prayer Cardigan" for my DBIL is almost done. I've sewn up the sides, underarms and pockets, and am ready to start on the front bands. I'll be able to give it to him for Christmas.

If you missed the story behind this project, the sweater was started by my DSIL, who passed away a year ago in October. Before she died, she asked me to finish it for her. She had the back done and the ribbing of both fronts started. In the project bag was some of the bottle green yarn, but not enough to finish it. She thought she had more yarn somewhere. When DBIL couldn't find the yarn, I started looking for a substitute to use for the sleeves, thinking it would look OK if the sleeves were a different color. I found some black Aran yarn and ordered enough to make the sleeves. Then DBIL found the rest of the yarn when he was going through things. The pattern is in "Galway Heather Family Cardigans" by Lyric (Pattern Services) Ltd. and the yarn was purchased on the island of Inish Mor, Ireland. I had made the same sweater several years before for myself. It's the blue cardigan in my photos here: http://www.community.knitpicks.com/photo/aran1a-1?context=album&albumId=1984936%3AAlbum%3A389352

Daphne's book was shipped by Apple a couple of days ago, so it should reach Temple, TX, in plenty of time for Christmas. She is going there with her parents to visit the other grandparents. We will have to Skype. The book was fun to make. I put it together using my MacBook in the Projects function in iPhoto, then sent it to Apple over the Internet to be printed. Here's a photo of the intended recipient. My, she's growing up!

She's looking forward to the arrival of her new baby brother in April.

Plans for this week: housecleaning and cooking for the holidays. If there's time, I'll put the binding on the Daisy
Chain quilt.

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What's on my needles: Finishing the button and buttonhole bands on the Prayer Cardi.
What's on my iPad: Mostly Christmas music.
What's my app of the week: The Walmart, Target and Amazon apps, for Christmas shopping.
What's in my wine glass: Jacob's Creek Merlot 2010.

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad.  No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.

High Fiber—More Holiday Projects

Christmas presents need finishing up. This week found several projects almost finished. I'm making a book for Daphne, telling her all about her first year of life featuring photos taken by family members.

I'm using the MacBook for this. It's a function of the iPhoto program. You can also use Shutterfly or other services for this, but I found this one easiest for me to use. You can get more information  here.

I finished the second sleeve of the Prayer Cardi for DBIL. I still need to sew it together and make the front band. I wanted a change, so I CO the  Mitones Ivoñes. One is finished. The pattern is from Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski. 

It needs blocking. I'll try to post a photo when the pair is done and blocked. Unfortunately, there are some mistakes in the chart, so I ended up frogging the hand and thumb gusset. If I were making these mittens again, I would move the thumb over a bit.

Common Threads met on Thursday. I always learn a lot from this group. Lynda brought a hat she had made from her handspun leftovers.

The pattern is stranded, but she put the stranding on the outside. It's a ponytail hat, with a button. She improvised the pattern.

Brenda has been making these frilly scarves. She says you can make one in a couple of hours. Last-minute gifts, anyone?

The pattern is Filatura di Crosa Tahki Stacy Charles.

She was using  Rozetti Marina yarn, which she says is softer, but it's acrylic. Now you have a choice, if you want to make this pattern. She is making some of these with the yarn called for in the pattern, which is very easy.

Lynda is trying to convert a pattern to knitting it in the round, but the hard part of the pattern is done on the back side. I suggested she knit it inside-out and then turn it. She tried it and it worked. Brainstorming is one of the best things about this group!

After our meeting, seven of us went to lunch at No Worries, the little Café at the entrance to our neighborhood. It was good we caught them during a slow time.

Saturday, Sunny and I visited a nursing home in West Jordan, UT, with a number of other teams from Therapy Animals of Utah. This facility isn't serviced during the year, so it was exciting for the residents.

DH and I got the tree up and decorated, and our holiday letter is done. I'm still hoping to get the binding on the Daisy Chain quilt before Christmas, but I have a lot of other things to do first. I'm expecting this to be another busy week!

What's on my needles: Finishing Mitones Ivoñes and DBIL's Prayer Cardi.
What's on my iPad: Knit Picks Podcast, The Knit Wits Podcast and Anne McCaffrey's The Skies of Pern from Audible.
What's my app of the week: On my MacBook, iPhoto and the projects function.
What's in my wine glass: Velvet Moon 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon. Lovely.

Note: This blog post was produced entirely on the iPad. (I used the Notes app to write it.) No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for or cleaned.