Tick tick

I joined Clean Slate by 2008 on Ravelry a while back. Since then I've managed to knock most of the Christmas knitting off my list, but I may be out of luck finishing a couple of the miscellaneous projects:

Finished (hooray!):

Anemoi Mittens (but I forgot to photograph the FO on their own so here's a WIP picture and a photo of them being modelled by the recipient).


Yarn: 1 ball of Frog Tree Alpaca sportweight in cream/white and 1 skein of Alchemy Alpaca Pure in Madre Deus.

Conwy socks
Pattern: Conwy from Nancy Bush's "Knitting on the Road"

Yarn: 2 skeins of ShibuiKnits sock yarn

Christmas stockings and Linen Bath Set (already posted)

Swing Thing baby sweater


Yarn: 3 balls of Plymouth Encore worsted, plus some grosgrain ribbon and thread from Nancy's Sewing Basket

Socks for my husband:

Yarn: 3 balls of worsted weight Mission Falls superwash merino
Finish date: 12/25, while the poor guy was working

Getting there...it may happen:
Pacific Northwest Shawl


It's either this or the shawl:
Embossed Leaves socks (no photos yet)

Hah! As if:
Bayerische socks (still no photos)
Hydrangea scarf


Definitely not (and frogged):
Diamond Waffle socks

A piece of work:
The tabby


Not ready for his close-up:
The cow-cat (can you believe he's NOT the cat in the card?)

Catching up

The Christmas knitting continues.

Did I ever mention the Linen Bath Set I was making? Well, I finished it. I even wove in the ends right after casting off the final cloth. There's one for the history books! The only problem is, it may not qualify as Christmas knitting because I still don't know who the recipient might be.



Pattern: Linen Bath Set.
Yarn: Louet Euroflax, 2 skeins in Ginger.
Cat: Large, nosy, perpetually hungry, highly determined, and unfortunately clever neutered male tabby.

I also made a couple of Christmas stockings. The first one was Christmas in Tallinn from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. I had made this last year but used bigger yarn (red and white Dale Heilo, with doubled strands of leftover green Dale Baby Ull) for the 2007 version so that the stocking matched the size in the pattern.

The second one was supposed to be the Giant Jester Stocking from Interweave Knits' 2006 holiday issue, but it got a bit out of control.

I tried to follow the pattern, I really did. For attempt #1 I decided to stashbust and use some leftover yarn that technically belonged to the same colour families as the yarn in the photo, but the yarn was so dark that the result, quite frankly, could have inspired permanent fear of both Christmas and jesters in the recipient. So I frogged that and tried again with (new) yarn in shades like those in the magazine photo, but then decided I just didn't like the colours themselves. For attempt #3 I went traditional and used green for the cuff and red and white for the stocking, but the stripes looked too much like something from an antique bathing suit. Finally I said to heck with this and (at M's suggestion) changed the stripes to a candy-cane pattern.

Yarn: Cascade 220

In hindsight, I probably should have included some narrow stripes...this seems slightly on the loud side. Oh well.

Things have been going better with the baby sweater. I just need to weave in the ends, block, and add buttons and ribbon.

Pattern: Swing Thing by Theresa Belville
Yarn: Plymouth Encore worsted

Last week I went to the Urban Craft Uprising show and picked up some sock yarn (not shown) and some roving from Actual Size Creations. The one with lime green is merino, while the other is Blue-Faced Leicester.



And in non-fiber related activities, I made a pie! Actually, I made two because we didn't have any bakeware big enough to hold all of the fruit. It turned out pretty well for a first pie attempt. I used the deep-dish pie recipe from Joy of Cooking so I only had to worry about a top crust.