Christmas prezzies

I'll stick with the knitting related ones - some yummy yarn and a sock kit :-)

Hubby got enough DB Alpaca Silk for Lara and a skein of Misti Alpaca Lace. Now I'm only waiting for the DB magazine to arrive.

He also got me Trekking XXL 05, Brittany Birch needles in 3mm and a retractable tape measure.

Nickel says, "Thanks cousins (5 kitties) for the perfect doggie bandana!" Here he is modeling it on Christmas morning.

Poor Nickel had to be tied to the dining table so he wouldn't jump on the guests. He is so drawn to the scents of Body Butter. He's enrolled in Basic Training in January so this is temporary solution when there are visitors.

Puppy love

Nickel Bear is growing like a weed. In a few months, he'll be bigger than Little Man. He'll probably outweigh Pumpkin Girl, too.

Nickel Bear on 11/23/06
Poor puppy thinks he is a cat. He tries to climb our Christmas tree. Hubby has caught him stuck on the tree a few times. We've had to remove all the Christmas balls that the kids hung because he managed to crush a few. We stopped turning on the tree lights for now because he snaps at the lights. I seriously think he's trying to topple the star atop the tree.

Nickels on 12/06/06
Don't let this cute face deceive you! He is a yarn sniffer! (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

And I call myself a knitter

Yesterday morning as I was walking Pumpkin Girl to the bus stop, I realized that I did not have a scarf to throw on to cover my neck/ears. How can that be?!?!

Last night while watching Heroes, I started another project ... a Red Scarf for me. I did not want to knit Ariann for fear of making another mistake due to inattention. Heroes is one of those shows where it has to be a mindless knit so that I can watch the show.

Anyway, back to the knitting, I made a Mistake Rib Scarf from LMKG last year. Don't ask where the scarf is? Last I remember the kids were using it in their "pretend store" and were selling it back to me for $10. I used Knit Picks Panache in Cranberry. One ball had knots so I emailed their Customer Service. They could not match my dye lot so instead they sent me 3 new balls. Awesome Customer Service!

In short, I snatched my 8mm Addis and a ball of Panache and cast on for a 2x2 rib scarf. I'm still debating if I'll make a keyhole scarf out of it.

Picture will be added later.

Knitting hiatus is over

After the loss of Copper Bear, I had a hard time picking up the knits. Copper Bear was my knitting buddy. He was always by my feet whenever I would settle down to knit.

When I was ready, I picked up the lovely Ariann where I had left her and joined the sleeves to the body. First, I dropped a purl on a YO. I attempted to fix it and continued to knit. When I got back to that same spot, it looked horrible ... a big gaping hole in the left front panel. Ariann was quickly packed up in the Ziploc bag it calls home.

A week later I attempted to fix the problem. That mistake took hours to fix. Then I continued to knit a few more rows. I got so cocky and ended up decreasing the raglan too fast. Once I realized my mistake, Ariann was banished once again to the Ziploc bag.

Ariann prior to RIPfest
Thanksgiving happened. Once all the guests had left, I decided to tackle Ariann again. I knew what I had to do ... RIP back all those rows and start fresh at the join. So I spent an afternoon ripping stitch by stitch all of 10 rows. By this time, I figured out the stitch counts prior to those decreases so I was ready to proceed. I've knitted up those 10 rows and then some.