I think the boy is cursed....

...because nothing I knit him works out.

I finished up the first war glove last night just before Mom arrived to take us to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra (WICKED AWESOME! Go see them if you can! I especially loved the fire. Mmmm fire....) and I tossed it at his head because he was playing pirates on the computer and ignoring me. He tried it on and....
They are too big. Now obviously this is my girly hand pictured with it, but it is enormous! They are supposed to be 5 inches wide and it's just over 5.5 inches (my girly hand is 3.5 inches). Dave doesn't have small hands, but they are nice, slender piano man hands.

But the thing that REALLY ticks me off. I SWATCHED. I never swatch - never, ever, ever, ever. I had to for this because the pattern didn't give a needle size. Just a gauge. It's worsted, and to get gauge I had to use a 3.5 mm needle (not really surprising, I do tend to be a loose knitter). And my gauge was SPOT ON! It was perfect!

Now I can easily fix thsi little problem by modifying the pattern a bit - but I don't want to undo this one. I'm going to make the second and give it to my Papa, who has huge hands! Then I'm going to head up the Julie's to see if she has another skein of the yarn (her site said she had three, lets hope they are still there by the time I have moolah and a chance to get there) or something in a similar colour.

I had considered casting on for the second one at Job#2 tonight, but this morning I packed up Dave's sock instead. But when I got to work, I realized I left my fourth needle at home - so no knitting tonight.

Now I'm going to go upstairs and decide which yarn I want to use for my first shawl. Dave hasn't decided where he wants to go for New Year's - his cottage or his uncle's, but wherever we end up at the stroke of midnight - I'm casting on!

Happy New Year's to all!

Of wartime and thieves...

Well, after a wet and rainy Christmas, old man winter has finally made an appearance. I woke up this morning to about an inch or so of snow. The temperature has dropped and the wind has picked up considerably. Dave is at the cottage and he says the wind is just a-howling off Lake Erie.

I myself spent the evening curled up with my shawls and afghans, knitting away. What better way to spend a cold evening?

I cast on for a new project that will hopefully solve a little problem Dave and I have. Whenever we get in his car, he turns the heat on full blast - and I mean like 90 degrees full blast (this from the boy who can't stand summer). That wouldn't necessarily be a problem except for one thing. Neither of us can agree on where the heat should be coming out of.

When I drive, the heat is always turned to the floor. The only exception is when I need to defrost my windows, and as soon as they are clear, it goes back on the floor. The reason - I can't stand hot air blowing on my face, it makes me feel like I can't breath. In fact, I quite often drive with the window cracked in the winter to let some fresh air in. I similarly hate air conditioning in the car, but I can live with it.

Dave however, wants the heat coming out of the dash. The reason? "My hands are cold!" he whines. He won't let me close the vents, and even though they are turned toward him, I still feel the brunt of it.

I bought him some lovely fur-lined leather gloves, but he never wears them. He says he can't get a good grip on the steering wheel. Fair enough. Finally, at the beginning of December I had a brainwave - fingerless gloves!

I mentioned it to him and got - "yeah, that could work, but are they going stretch like my socks and my sweater?"

After I finished beating him for his insolence, I hopped on Ravelry and found a pair called "Trigger Gloves". The pattern was from the second world war, and as soon as I mentioned that, Dave's eyes lit up. "You mean it would be something like what the gunners wore?"

The boy is slightly obsessed with WWII. I like history too, but much prefer the mysteries of ancient Egypt, the innovations of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, the knights and chivalry of medieval times and the intrigue and ingenuity of the Renaissance. But I digress....

The pattern called for sport weight yarn - but I don't have any sport weight yarn that isn't girly. I also wanted it to match his leather coat - which is a lovely '70s hue of dark tobacco. I knit him a hat that matched perfectly last year (which he loves) out of Bernat Ultra Alpaca. I still have a skein left, but it is worsted weight. I found a couple patterns - but none were from the war.

And then I had another brainwave - why not use a regular glove pattern - I had a 'service man' glove pattern from 1942 - and just shorten the fingers?

Here it is so far...

...I had hoped to be a little further along, but I had a bit of a knitting emergency tonight.

You see, back when I posted the pattern for Nip Nuggets, one of my blog readers and her four beautiful kitties admired them. She doesn't knit and neither do her cats, so I thought I'd whip up a quartet and send them off.

With all the hours at work and Christmas knitting, I didn't get a chance to finish them until last night. I tucked them up on the shelf where MY cats couldn't get them... or so I thought.....

I came home today to this smug little turd...What gets me is 1) this is the fattest, laziest cat you will ever meet. He lays down to eat! If anyone was going to climb the shelf to get something, I would have put my money on Rocky, not Tux. 2) All four Nip Nuggets were in the same spot - and he only took the one.He may be a smug little turd, but at least he's not a greedy little turd.

So anyway, I really wanted to get them off to Amy and her family - they've waited long enough - so I spent an hour or so whipping up another one.

All four are l safely packaged up, cat proofed and will be posted tomorrow! And with any luck I can still gt Dave's gloves finished before the New Year, 'cause I've got some shawls to cast on!

All about socks....

I finished up a couple pair of socks over the holidays. I wanted to make a pair of Feather and Fan socks for myself, but couldn't find a pattern that was exactly what I wanted. So, of course, I set to designing my own using our Top Cat (colour is Budgie):
I called it Undine, and the pattern is now available for free on Ravelry.
I finished these ones up on Christmas Eve and immediately cast on for a second pair. I finished them on Boxing Day.
These were knit with La ball of Lana Grossa I picked up at Julie's tent sale in the summer. It's a blend of virgin wool, silk, polymid and cashmere - I want some more of this yarn - it's lovely! I On this pair I knit the purl row, leaving out the garter ridge. I think the socks look great both ways.

The thing I love best about knitting socks is having sock yarn left over for the crackghan:This has been neglect of late what with all the hours at work and need to finish Christmas gifts. But I picked it up today and did six new squares on it.

And, I test drove the exercise bike for a full half hour today. I kept a speed of about 15 km/h, travelled 6.6 km, burned 78 calories and knit this muchA simple 3-1 rib sock for Dave. I will most likely give them to him for Valentine's Day.

But now it's back to the real world... so off to bed for me. No sleeping in until noon tomorrow.... sigh....

Aftermath

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.

For my part, I really can't complain. Christmas Eve was spent with Dave's Mom and Grandma. They received the Pink Berry Hill socks, and Fan Shawl respectively and both seemed pleased. We got home just before midnight and crawled into bed, just before Santa arrived.

Christmas day we slept in until almost noon (a first for me - I was always the kid trying to get everyone up at 3 a.m.) and headed up to Mom's for 3 p.m. There was a whirlwind of present opening and a great dinner and then it was off to my grandparent's for a quick visit:
I love this pic... the oldest member of the family, my Papa, with the youngest (and cutest and baddest), my niece Rowan.

She, and her big sister, Paisley,...made out like little bandits. But I wasn't neglected by the Christmas faeries either. Some of the highlights include:Wicked awesome Knit Picks Harmony double points in larger sizes. These will come in handy with the Tosh cardi, as the sleeves are knit in the round.
A gorgeous set of new dishes. When I moved out, Mom was kind enough to give me her old set - which are about 15 years old. I've wanted a new set for a long time, but could never justify the expense. After all - there is nothing really wrong with old set - they are still very functional.

But this set is perfect - it's so me... at once rustic and trendy... and GREEN. You can't see it, but the glaze on the green is all crackled and so beautiful. I particularly love the bowls, which are nice and deep. Dave loves the mugs - they are super tall and sturdy - perfect for a giant cup of coffee in the morning.

Dave took me out for my present today. It actually wasn't our intention to go shopping - we both hate the mania of the whole Boxing Day thang - but he needed a pipe fitting for the cottage's new water heater, so off to Canadian Tire we went. We were just about to leave when we walked by the exercise equipment. I had asked for a recumbent bike, and we intended to go shopping for one in the New Year - after all the Boxing Week mania calmed down - but there it was, on sale:
We immediately put it together when we got home - which was interesting - we love each other dearly, but are well aware of our limitations when it comes to building things together - we both want to be in charge. But in the end we got it done.

It's a good size, and tucks against the wall and out of the way. When I want to use it, I just swing it around in front of the TV and peddle away! My goal is to be able to peddle through a whole movie almost every night - I don't have cable, or even an antenna - just my DVD player, so all I watch is movies.

And the best part about it? I can KNIT while I peddle!!!... How cool is that???

Happy Holidays

We at Wandering Cat Studio wish you all the best, however you choose to celebrate the season...

...even if that means spending all day in bed!

'Twas the night before the night before Christmas...

... and there is not much going on here. It's not like being a kid - I can remember the anticipating of the weeks leading up to Christmas - every day it seem to mount and mount. Now it's just... meh.. Christmas is coming.

Actually the peace is kind of nice. I've FINALLY gotten to the arm holes on my Tosh cardi. I didn't think it was ever going to happen - 280 stitches to a row is a lot - oh wait... did I say I joined 10 shawls in 2010... I guess I better get used to long rows. Anyway, here's how it looks at this moment:
As you can see the second ball of yarn is quite a bit lighter - the beauty of hand painted yarn. Personally I think it looks pretty cool, and I'm sure the next ball will be different again. It all adds to the charm in my opinion.

I am about half done the second Budgie sock - but I don't have a picture to show you. I took one but it's blurry and I only have until Dave is out of the shower to get this post done - so there is no time to take another one.

Yep.. he's out now and will want the computer back, so I'll leave you with this wicked awesome pic I took of Peno yesterday:

A Perfect 10!

You may or may not have been to the shop today - but if you haven't, you should. Mom listed two new colours of Fluffy Cat. Pink Pearl (of which I have a skein in my personal stash) and Sugar Plum Faeries.

It was really hard to let her put those up for sale I tell you - Fluffy Cat is my absolute favourite yarn for shawls and those colours are hard to resist.

And speaking of shawls - I've joined 10 Shawls in 2010, have you?

In addition, Wandering Cat Yarns is also a sponsor and will be offering up a skein of Fluffy Cat as a prize!

Ten shawls in a year is a very ambitious project for me, but I think I can swing it. Sock knitting will be relegated to work only, and the two sweaters I have on the go will be for distracted knitting days (they are both plain stocknit for the most part). And I'm not knitting for anyone else next year! Just moi!

Here is my list of 10 shawls (subject to change without notice - images stolen shamelessly from others on Ravelry)

Purity
You may remember, I started Purity last year, but it got sent to the frog pond and never picked up again. I have some lovely white Alpaca Fina for the centre, and some pale green Kid Silk Haze for the border

Icarus
Another one I started and frogged. I think I'm going to do this in Sport Weight instead of Lace Weight. I have some lovely apple green Yarn Tree House Alpaca/Merino for it.

Red Dragon
As mentioned a while back, I have some yummy Handmaiden Sea Silk in Woodland for this baby!

Chicago
I have no idea what I'm doing this one in yet, but I really like that ruffle!


Bitteroot
I will be doing the larger version and using the sumptuous Winter Spruce Fluffy Cat I dyed on my birthday.


Wool Peddler
I just scored some Debbie Bliss Stella in scarlet for this one!

Navdanya Prayer Shawl
I may steal the dark green merino I have squirreled away for a sweater for Dave for this one.

Regal Comfort Shawl
Nice and simple, I think this may be what Dave's Leo gets reknit into.

Multnomah
Thanks to Mom I have some lovely Skinny Bugga in Rainbow Scarab (colour pictured) to knit this one

Dragon Wings
I'm not sure what yarn to use for this, but it's been in my queue since I joined ravelry.

So, 2010 is going to be busy, as you can see.

You should also go check out Knitting in the Wild. She's having a contest for some lovely silk yarn.

Now, since I can't start any of these shawls until January, I'm going to go see if I can get to the armholes on my Tosh cardi.