Chapter 142 - In which I show you the last FOs for 2010

So the year has come to its end. May I just ask how that can be possible? This year has just flown by. I quit work, started school, sold my house, bought a new one, moved.. (oh, I also fit in a marital crisis in there..) Phew, no wonder I've spent most of my Christmas holiday asleep. :D Anyhow, I wish you all have had a good year, and have an even better year 2011!

And onward to my FOs, I have lots of them today. :) In no particuar order, I've made Christmas dresses for the girls, the older girl chose the fabric for her dress herself. :)

And the tiny one got a red plaid dress, with tulle at the bottom. You can't really see the tulle, but it's there. :)

As for my school project for this Fall, I made a full-length dress for a friend. It took ages to finish, but I think it was worth it.

Just before Christmas break we got assigned to design, draw the pattern (luckily we got to use a basic pattern for this one!) and make a shirt, also a school project. This is my shirt.

As for knitting, I haven't done much of that, but I have been able to finish two projects, and two more are almost done. I guess those will have to be my first two FOs for 2011. :) I made the lining for the hat I showed you earlier, and it turned out ok. If you don't count the fact that it's now too small for the tiny one. I'm thinking about soaking it and stretching it out a bit. It is made of wool, so it should stretch just as much as I want it to.
And I finished the slouchy socks too. I did switch to dpn's when I got to the heel, because I like my socks to be tightly knit, and working with the mini-circs made my knitting very loose. I guess I just have to work more on my tension with the mini-circs. (The yarn is a lot darker than it looks in the picture..)
And on that note, I'm done for this year, nothing left to do than eat some cheesecake (mmm, Bailey's cheesecake, omnomnom) and look at some fireworks.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

From all of us, to all of you

A very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or whatever it is that you celebrate this time of year.

Let me tell you about my weekend

Yes, I know it's already Thursday, but I'm slow, ok? So last Friday we packed our bags, and headed for the airport. Up until Thursday night we had been waiting on pins and needles to find out if we get to go on our weekend trip or not, the flight attendants on our domestic airline (the one we were supposed to fly with!) were on strike. Well, on Thursday evening the husband got a text message that said that our flight would be leaving when it was supposed to. Yay! So on Friday we were on our merry way to jolly old London. (Let's not even mention that the flight was an hour an a half delayed, and we didn't get to our hotel until 8 p.m. We were in London!)

On Friday night we went for dinner (I had the best salad ever) and then thought we'd take a walk and go see Piccadilly Circus. See, on the map it didn't look that far. But London is a big city. So we walked, walked, and walked some more. It took about an hour. We finally got to Piccadilly, took a photo, this one here
And then, get this, we decided to walk back! Seriously, this is where I get a bit confused. There's an underground station right there at Piccadilly, we had just walked about 5 kilometers (about 3 miles), the underground would have taken us to about a block from our hotel, and we decided to walk back! All kinds of crazies going around..

On Saturday we walked to Portobello Road (yes, more walking :P), it was so packed with people that you could hardly breathe, but we bravely walked along it for a while. :) From there we took the underground to Tower Bridge, as the husband wanted to see it, as he's never been to London before.
Then we headed to Trafalgar Square, and I'm so happy we stopped there, because this is what we saw

I have no idea what al these Santa's helpers were doing there, but there were hundreds of them! And wherever we looked, there were even more of them walking towards the Square (all of them more of less drunk.) I would have wanted to visit Camden Town, but we didn't have time for that. Just as well to leave something for next time too, right? :) After this we headed to Oxford Street to do some shopping. Not that we bought much of anything, I bought a shirt, pants and a too small dress (because it is a good idea to buy a dress and think "I'll fit into this some day". But it was so cute. And I'm going on a diet after Xmas. Hah) for myself, and then we got something for the kids.

All in all, it was a good weekend, a bit stressful because we only had one whole day to see everything, and Ican't wait to go back. Can I go back now? Can I? Pretty please? No? Well crap.

So I made a coat..

And then it got too cold for me to wear it. Oh pah. Anyways, it's a wool coat, a fun circle shape (please don't ask me what pattern it is, I have no idea whatsoever.) So far I've used a very fancy safety pin to fasten the coat with, I'm working on a better solution. :) The collar isn't sewn on correctly, it's supposed to lie perfectly flat, but let's pretend that I wanted it to look the way it does, ok? Because I'm so not going to admit that I just couldn't figure out how the heck it was supposed to be sewn. And I kinda like it the way it is now. And let's also pretend that I don't look very tired and pale in the pictures, with strange shadows where shadows shouldn't be present. Oh, also, you can't see that double chin, can you? ;)
And of course I had to make a matching bag, because I'm a bit anal like that. This was a real pain in the a** to sew, I had to pull the thing forward with both hands, because the foot of my sewing machine just didn't want to move ahead while sewing the ribbon on. Argh, never doing that again!

And finally, I went to the theatre yesterday, so I just had to make myself a new skirt. Because I had absolutely nothing to wear! It's warm, it's cute, and I love it! (the only thing that bugs me just a teeny bit, is that with a little bit of effort I could've made the vertical stripes continue in a smooth line from the waistband to the rest of the skirt. But I didn't think of that at the time, and I only wear löong shirts anyway, so nobody will ever know. Except for everybody who sees these pictures. XD )

I have no FOs to show

So I'll show you a bunch of WIPs instead. (And again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.) Let's start with a hat that I actually made years ago, when the middle child was two or three. It's in perfectly good shape, but it's not nearly warm enough for the frickin' cold weather that we've been having lately. So I came up with the perfect solution, I'll knit a lining for the hat! A double wool hat should be warm enough, even for our -20C weather.
Next we have a pair of mittens for me. I'm making these with Noro Silk Garden. The mitten part is too big, and I made the thumb too short, but let's call those design elements, shall we?
And finally, I'm making myself a pair of thick socks. I have a finished sock around here somewhere, but I have no idea whatsoever where it is, so here's a photo of the inprogress-sock. ;) (Hah, I completely forgot that I told you about these socks already. XD I'd forget my head if it wasn't securely fastened on my shoulders..)
I do have a coat and bag that I've sewn, but I want better photos of those, so you'll have to wait a while to see them. :)

New home for my new phone

So I got a new phone (as a birthday present :) ). It didn't fit into my old cozy. Obviously I had to make a new one. It's not particularly pretty, but as it took me about half an hour to make this, I'm not going to be too critical about the finished product. :D

Trying out new things

I finally started a pair of socks for myself. I would have started these weeks ago, but the husband tidied up around here at some point, and he has put my ball of yarn in a very secure place. So secure in fact, that I can't find it anywhere. Today I gave up and bought a new ball. (So, naturally, I'll find the missing ball tomorrow.) Nothing new about me knitting socks, you say? Well, that's true. But I'm knitting my socks on mini circulars for the first time ever. At this point, I'm not completely convinced that I like them, we'll see how I feel after knitting the whole pair. :) (Actually, I'll probably switch to dpns when I get to the heel..) Here's the very beginning
Oh, I realized that I forgot to show you my new earrings. I made these a couple weeks ago, but forgot to add them to my last post. Nothing special about them, just a pair of dangly skull earrings. :)

Don't try this at home kids

Try to take decent photos in the dark. Because, you see, it just won't work. It's just impossible to get good photos when it's this dark. So I'll show you a few sucky photos, just pretend that they're now horribly underlit, ok?

First a simple pink raglan that I made for the tiny one, I used the Top Down Raglan Sweater Generator that I always use for these kinds of knits. And just so that it wouldn't be too boring, I sewed on a couple of buttons. The yarn is Cascade 220, in a very girly pink. :)

And because I'm completely convinced that you've enjoyed these photos, I'm going to show you a couple more. I made three new bracelets, one to replace the one I made earlier, that broke into a million and one pieces, and two completely new ones. Because I have nothing better to do all day than sit on my a$$, watch Stargate and make bracelets. Nope, I really don't.

And they all have different clasps, bacause where would the fun be in using similar clasps on all of them?

My knitting has a mind of its own

So I wanted to make a thick scarf. And I got a skein of Malabrigo Chunky, thinking that I'll get a scarf out of it. I then picked the pattern I want to use, which was the One-row handspun scarf by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Cast on my stitches, all 30 of them and started knitting. And I knitted happily along for a while, until I noticed that my ball of yarn was shrinking at an alarming rate. At which point I realized that I would definitely not have enough yarn to make a scarf. Oh pah. What to do? As I may have mentioned before, I absolutely loathe frogging, so I had to think of something else. So I wrapped it around my neck and came to the conclusion that it was just the perfect length to make a cowl. And here you have it, my new, warm and cozy cowl. Yay! :D

Oh, in case you were wondering, yes, my hair really is very much a bright pink at the moment. ;)

Super-duper quickie

So I knit a hat. It took me all of half an evening to make. And I'm not able to wear it for even half that long. I'm so never using this yarn again for anything. It doesn't feel too bad on the ball, doesn't even feel bad knit up, but good grief how much it makes my scalp itch! Argh! I wore it for about ten minutes, and felt like scratching my scalp and ears until the bleed. So, not gonna wear this. Which really is too bad, because I really wanted a hat with sequins. Am I really going to have to buy a hat with sequins? Shock, horror!

B-day pressies

The middle kid has two birthday parties to go to this weekend, and as I'm flat broke at the moment, I decided to make the presents myself. At first I was going to make both girls bracelets, but as the girl who had her party today is really tiny, I didn't know what size to make it, so I thought it best to make her something else instead. After giving it some thought, I decided on a bag. A small bag, for a small girl. And this is what I ended up with. All little girls love a little bling, right? :)

For the girl who has her party tomorrow I made a bracelet, but now I'm getting a bit worried that it's not enough.. Oh well, let's hope she likes her present. I think it's pretty..
Let's just hope I can find the bracelet tomorrow, the kid tried it on and now I can't find it anywhere..

Look, knitting! Actual knitting!

Because everyone needs a little bling in their everyday lives. :)
And that's about it on the knitting front. I'm still working on the Minimalist cardi that I started way back when. I finished the back and am now working on the left front. And I have a feeling that it won't suit me at all. But I guess I won't find out about that until I'm finished. Next I'm going to start working on a scarf for myself, I just need to get the yarn wound into a ball first. Oh, and I need to make a pair of mitts for my mom..

And just so that you don't think that I've been sitting around doing nothing, here are a few pictures of our new house..


More to come after we actually finish something.

There ain't no knittin' goin' on here

But I did make a bracelet for myself. And I'm ridiculously proud of it. Now if I just wasn't afraid that it would break, I could actually wear it. But it's pretty. :)
I didn't plan on using the seed beads between the crystals, but I didn't have enough of the metal thingies to go round the whole bracelet, so I solved the problem by using the beads.

And now back to renovating.. Blech.

Oh, poor neglected blog, how do I feel sorry for thee..

What can I say, moving is bloody hard. I haven't had any energy left over for this blogging stuff (plus we've had the slowest internet connection ever since we moved, just got out broad band back yesterday), I haven't even knit anything in ages. :O Like I said no energy, we're all out of that around here. Sold out, sorry. But I promise to bring you all up to date on the house-stuff sooner or later, after we get settled in a bit better. :) Because right now, this is what most of our new house looks like, kinda need to concentrate on getting the house fixed up. ;)
ps. that's not our couch, it's a loan couch that we get to keep until we get our new couch.