Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever you celebrate at this time of year)

We spent Christmas at our cottage in the woods with my parents and my paternal grandmother. Forest all around, no street lights, no passing cars, fire in the fireplace and kitchen stove at all times, lots of good food. Very cosy. No snow though, but there usually isn't any at Christmas. As H said: "It was a grey Christmas".

But in the dark afternoon of Christmas Eve, there was suddenly a lantern outside the window. Someone came walking over the field. Jultomten!


The children where all big eyes and nervous eagerness. Everyone was accounted for, so it had to be the real Santa! And he brought presents!

They let him in this time. Two years ago when he last visited E was terrified (and four) and refused to let him in. Santa had to leave the sack of presents and leave... Last year we where in Australia with my sister and her family and our kids where excited to leave milk and gingerbread for Santa by the fireplace in the evening and see that there were only crumbs the next morning. He had actually come down the chimney! And left presents in stockings! They still talk about it.

I only did one knitted present this year, Grandmother's socks (they fit and she loves them. Yay!) But I finished a hat for M on Boxing Day (can someone *please* tell me why it is called Boxing Day!?)


Pattern: Zeebee
Yarn: Drops Alpaca in a dark blue, 2 balls.
Needle: 3.75 mm Knit Picks circ
Verdict: Fun pattern, even though it is a bit boring with back and forth garter stitch. Luckily there is short row shaping on every row to keep you awake.
M wanted a hat to fit under his bicycle helmet and I think this one does the trick. It is plain and long enough to cover the ears. And when the helmet comes off you can fold up the brim if you want to.


H picked up a dreadful cold at daycarethe week before Christmas, so she spent Christmas coughing and coughing. Then she passed it on to baby A. He has been most unhappy with a stuffy nose, running eyes and much coughing. I spent all Saturday afternoon at the hospital to get some meds for him. He seems to be on the mend now, thankfully.

I must show off my latest spinning! This is Sunrise:


Fiber: 4 ounces of Blue Faced Leicester (sp?) roving from Funky Carolina, colourway Sunrise (I think)
Yarn: 110 m/120 yards of approximately DK weight yarn, about 11 wpi.
What I did: I split the roving in two equal lengths, one for each ply. Then I split it many times lengthwise but I didn't predraft. I spun it as thinly as I could, and plied it. Amazingly, I had less than one meter left on the other bobbin when I ran out of single on the first one!


And this is Manly:


Fiber: 4 ounces of superwash merino roving from Squoosh, colourway Manly. This fiber is So Soft!


Yarn: 112 m/122 yards of approximately DK weight yarn, about 11 wpi.
What I did: I split the roving in two equal lengths, one for each ply. Then I split it in eight lengthwise strips but I didn't predraft. I spun it as thinly as I could, and plied it. This time I really tried not to overtwist the single. I had a bit more left over from plying this time so I tried Handy Plying the rest. OK, very easy to wind the single around my hand. But not so easy to ply from the thing. It tangled rather badly and it took me quite some time to untangle it. But I managed to ply a baby skein.


I have nothing on the wheel right now but I think that my other roving from Squoosh is next in line.

It is merino but not superwash. Colourway Kiss.

I joined the Spunky Fiber Club, December was my first shipment. So now I have to decide how to spin this very bright thing:

8 ounces of superwash Corriedale in *very* bright colours. One looong length of green, and two shorter lengths of blue and red. Someone plied hers with white, that looked nice and not quite so bright. I may do that too. Anyway I think this is destined to be something for the kids.

Now when Grandmother's socks are done I have continued to work on the Fire & Ice socks again. This is the second one:

I have just started the arch increases.

The second project that I really work on is the Obstacles shawl.

I have done 11 repeats, a little more than a third of the length according to the pattern. I plan to make it as long as the yarn allows. I still have a good bit left on the first of my two balls, so about 30 repeats is a good guess. The colour is a bit off in this picture, it is really a dark rich red. I love this pattern! The texture is interesting and I have managed to learn the pattern by heart so it makes good TV knitting now. At least when I don't hold baby A...

And because socks are socks, I couldn't resist my new Noro Sock yarn...


But I may resist it a bit now, I really want to make a pair of socks for my mum first. She has some health issues right now and I want to make her something. I have both yarn and pattern picked out, I just have to make some calculations before I start.