Happy 2006!

Hi folks... and welcome to 2006.

Seth and I are... mostly... moved into the house. Mostly because although the majority of the rooms are free of random moving boxes, I can still see the huge pile of them down in the mud room when I stand in the kitchen. I figure I'll get that one sorted about the time spring comes along. Spring cleaning, you know.

But I have been busy- despite the fact this place hasn't been updated in almost a month. And since we all know that the knitting and crocheting is really what you're looking for, I'll stop with the chatter and get on with it.

First up, I had a request a while back from my brother for a not-so-lacy style doily that he could use to place his Buddha on on his Buddhist alter. Not being a Buddhist myself, I wasn't sure what would be appropriate or inappropriate. He ended up picking out the yarn, and with some help from the Livejournal Knitting Community, I found the Spiralen pattern. This pattern is awesome... and I would love to make one myself at some point. The downside is that it is meant to be started with the 8 stitches spread on 4 dpns. I honestly have no idea how anyone can start a project with so few stitches on 4 dpns... you folks that can do this are amazing. I can start on 3 dpns, though, so I cheated, started with 3 dpns, did the first three rows of plain knit, and then "upgraded" to the 4. I got a lot of nice compliments from the people at work ("A knitted doily? I've never seen a knitted doily before!"), and my brother thought it was awesome.

It's knitted with black cotton crochet thread and size 5 needles. I was concerned that it would be too loose at first, so I started knitting really tightly. I also did more pattern repeats than the original pattern called for since I wasn't sure how large his Buddha is. The edging is crochet and called for a second repeat around, but I chose to leave the second one out.

Here it is from the top... although it appears to be off-black, it is truly black. It's nice to be able to have natural sunlight to take knitting photos!



And here it is a little closer. Ignore that little piece of yarn sticking up.






Because the crochet cotton worked so well for Dave's project, and because I hadn't yet started his fiance, Phoebe's scarf, I pulled out my pattern for Veronik Avery's Lacy Hairtamer that came from Interweave Knits a while back. Phoebe has the most fantastic head of long curly hair, and she often will put the back up in a ponytail and use a headband to hold up the sides. I thought the hairtamer would be a perfect companion to my brother's Spiralen.

*as a completely off topic side note, I'm listening to my iTunes as I type this entry, and Neil Diamond's song "Sweet Caroline" just came on. I can't stop bobbing my head to the beat. All you Red Sox fan readers will appreciate how awesome this song is.*

So back on topic, I started the hairtamer Wednesday before Christmas, and since my family's party was on Christmas Eve, I had a whole 2 days to have it completed. I finished it literally 5 minutes before we left for my parents' house. This picture isn't the best, but it was all the time I had before I had to wrap it up and dash out the door.




Finally, my friend Jenna is due to have a little girl in mid-February. I don't think she is going to make it that long... I think she'll be honestly lucky to make it until the end of January. Regardless, her baby shower is this coming weekend, so I have been trying to finish a few things up. I had every ambition of finishing this on New Year's Eve (or sooner), but my harmless cold decided to explode into a raging sinus infection that completely knocked me on my ass for a few days. I was barely able to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve (oh, the exciting newlywed life that Seth and I lead! *snicker*), let alone work on knitting. But with some antibiotics (thank you makers of the Z-Pack) and some Corona, I finished this up last night. Now Seth wants one... only he wants his black and with fangs.

The original pattern calls for size 2 needles, if I recall right, and some sportweight or DK weight yarn. Since I wanted this to be super sturdy and thick, I double stranded Bernat Baby yarn and used a size 7 needle. I also decided to double the pattern so the final project would be twice as large as the original.

And before anyone comments that the tulle ribbon around the neck is a choking hazard to babies, I know. It's just there for right now.





The only problem I had with this pattern was trying to stitch the head so it would stay up. If it wasn't going to a kid, I could have done it with no problems, but since I wanted it to be super sturdy and mostly unbreakable, it was a little more difficult. Hopefully it is strong enough.

I've decided that in the next couple of months once I finish up the knitting and crochet promised to other people (a scarf for my aunt, a blanket for my grandmother's birthday), I am going to take a break from gift knitting. I have had yarn waiting for Knitty's Tempting and Glampyre's Top Down Raglan for months, and I just bought some gorgeous Knitpicks yarn for a Clapotis for myself. Perhaps selfish, but when I think about it, I've been knitting pretty hardcore for about a year and a half and in that whole time have only made one major thing for myself (Knitty's Coronet).

I hope everyone had an amazing holiday and New Year!