Ragna blocking

Ragna is off the needles and blocking! The pattern, from Viking Patterns for Knitting, is a basic drop-shoulder pullover with no particularly difficult shaping, but it's a cable extravaganza that I expect will flatten out a lot with blocking.

Here's the front, wrong side. Yikes, there are about a million ends to weave in. Cables always look like crap on the wrong side, don't they?

The back is much neater -looking once the ends are woven in. I'm ready to start pinning this one out. One nice thing about the Denise interchangeable needle set -- you can leave it on as a stitch-holder and block; since it's plastic, it won't rust.

I pinned the whole thing out on towels & laid it out on our bed to dry. Uff da, wet wool smells musty. Once the blocked pieces are dry, I will seam the shoulders & sides, and knit the funnel-neck collar... it has cables, of course.

And now I present... the obligatory photo of the pile of ends. Having cleared the needles at last, I have cast on the sweater for which Mike has been asking for, oh, at least three years. (The yarn was bought & stashed a couple months ago.) It's a V-neck sweater vest with a wide ribbed pattern cribbed from the Sixth Sense sock pattern, knit in the same wool as Ragna, actually... Elann's ever-versatile, ever-affordable Highland Wool. I've knit at least half a dozen projects in it. One of these days I'll gather up all the leftover half-balls of Highland that I've got lying around and knit a crazy-stripe felted tote bag or something. Wouldn't that look cool?

A Visit from My Sister

My very dear sister Boo has just left after a four-day visit, which was of course not nearly long enough but I was so happy she was able to come out for the holidays. Unfortunately, the Ghost of Awful Christmas Photos was haunting our house on Xmas morning... please pardon the way I seemed to catch a goofy expression on everyone's face. Believe it or not, these were the best of the bunch.

She came, of course, bearing gifts; what else? There were many wonderful & funny gifts exchanged all around. One of the funniest was a furry hat that Boo found for Mike -- the kind with the ear flaps that can be buttoned either up or down. It was immediately christened the "Mister Bus Driver" hat. Perfect for those cold mornings driving down those rural roads to pick up the farm kids.

She knows me too well, of course, and knew I would love anything yarny. She brought me two skeins of Lion Brand Chenille Thick 'n' Quick in the wonderful Terracotta color, which is only clashing a little bit with my burgundy t-shirt. She described the store swatch as "suede-y" which prompted her to choose it. It really is a lovely soft velvety chenille, and so fast at 2 st/in. I immediately cast on for a quickie stocking hat, which was finished before she left. (Mike to Boo: "She knits as fast as she reads.") It took only one of the two skeins; the other will be a little matching keyhole scarf.

The gift which received the most intent interest, however, was a box for Hunter that was so big that it's been called "Mt. Everest" by the kids for the past few weeks. Unwrapping finally revealed it to be a driveway basketball hoop, something for which Hunter has been asking for a while. My beamish boy!

The hoop was set up with only a little hassle, and provided a good deal of entertainment for the remainder of the visit. Here, a game of Horse is underway. I look like I'm directing traffic while Ali shoots, but I am probably just reminding Hunter to practice boxing out, which Boo is taking good-naturedly despite being nearly three times his size. (Boo won the game only narrowly over Ali, who is turning out to be a good clutch shooter.) Of course, the visit wasn't just about gifts. The sitting around, gabbing, hanging out, and all that was the best part. She wanted some famous KC barbecue, so we drove up to Fiorella's Jack Stack and had a late lunch before dropping her off at the airport. Plans are already underway for lots of interesting things to do during her next visit. Have a safe trip home, Boo! Happy New Year to all of you!

Knit From Your Stash for '07

Knitters make stash-reduction resolutions like most people make diet resolutions... I'm no exception. So, in the spirit of the coming New Year, I thought that Wendy's KFYS idea is a most worthy endeavor. I'll modify the rules slightly for my knitting style, however.

Knit From Your Stash 2007: Guidelines for Kay

• 1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through September 30, 2007 -- a period of nine months.
  
• 2. I will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:
  
  • 2.a. Sock yarn DOES count. What? You think I don't have sock yarn in stash?
    
  • 2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that I really and truly do not have the yarn for, I may buy yarn to knit that gift.
    
  • 2.c. If I am knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project.
    
  • 2.d. Small amounts of souvenir yarn purchased during a road trip does not count. (A little vacation tradition I have.)
• 3. I am allowed to receive gifts of yarn.

(I removed the fiber rule, since I don't spin)

My stash is still pretty well-mannered (about three tote-bins' worth), but I could honestly see it growing to alarming porportions in a hurry once we get moved into the dome and it has a chance to expand to craft-room size. Agressive stash pruning seems a good habit to establish now.

Charter Sux

Four days without an internet connection or cable teevee, people! First, the nice customer service person in New Delhi or wherever said that there was no reported outage. Then, on Day 2, a different nice person in New Delhi said that there was a large outage, it was affecting the entire neighborhood & that it would be restored in 24 hours. Then, on Day 3, yet another nice person in New Delhi said that there wasn't an outage, he didn't know why the second person said there was an outage, but he would schedule a service call. Finally, on Day 4, the technician shows up and quickly discovers that, when the people around the block from us were hooked up for their new internet/cable bundle last Friday, we were accidentally unplugged from the hub box. Or something like that. {sigh}

Anyway, it was a pretty low-tech weekend. We took the kids to see Eragon, a movie that pretty much consists of taking a book with the most cliched, predictable characters & hackneyed, mono-dimensional plot and making it even MORE cliched/predictable/hackneyed/one-dimensional. Bah. Hunter liked it, though. The rest of us had fun picking it apart afterwards.

I think I can, I think I can

After allowing Ragna to languish most of the year with occasional bursts of knitting, I have moved it to the top of the Finish-It list & have been cabling like a fiend. I really like knitting large things (sweaters & such) but they take so long! No wonder knitters have so many scarves & hats & little knitted things. Anyway, here is the front of Ragna at about the halfway mark; back and sleeves are done. Once the front is finished, I need to block, seam, and knit the collar. I may wear this thing before the year is out, yay! :-)

Fall of Troy

UCLA 13, USC 9. Need I say more?

Let it Snow, Let it Snow

The weather outside has been frightful all day, icy & sleety, but it didn't get really started snowing until just about dusk. Natch, we had to step outside & goof around for a few minutes, catch a few flakes on our tongues, all the usual first-snow-of-the-season stuff. The kids are still out there right now, playing flashlight tag in the dark. In the snow.

Winter is here!