Top Down Raglan for the Little Big Brother

The little coffee drenched top down raglan is coming along nicely. I suspect it is going to be too big but I can't be sure until I get my hands on the little wild thing to try it on. I am knitting a size 4 for my 3 year old nephew but a gauge check is telling me that it is going to be on the large side while he is on the small side. He is currently squeezing himself into the same sweater I made for him in the 6 months size. Really.

Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

This is what is left of our New Year's dessert. During one of my holiday shopping sprees I spotted something I have coveted for a long, long time, a steamed pudding mold.



At only $9.99 it was a real bargain. So far I have steamed up two puddings and then set them on fire using The Mister's precious rum. It was spectacular fun. And the best part is that listening to the pot hissing away on the stove for several hours during these bitter cold days has been oddly comforting.

Paying the Piper

I sat down to tackle the giant pile of receipts piled on my desk and to my horror discovered I went through $1500 between Thanksgiving and Christmas. All in the interest of jump starting the economy, of course. Good thing I have that nasty old job to go to.

Post Holiday/Monday Morning Blues

I always have a good cry on my way back to work after the holidays. I boo hoo my way through my hour commute overwhelmed by homesickness and regrets. There are so many things I planned to do with my precious days off and now it is too late. This was a year of notable omissions to our family traditions. No yule log cake. No Santa Claus jigsaw puzzle. No cans of carefully crafted spritz cookies. No real presents under the tree to speak of. It was a very grownup holiday, streamlined so I could manage more important things like regrouting an ugly pink bathroom, or so I thought. I want to do it all again. Right now.

When All Else Fails

The hat for the Little Leprechaun sweater is the cutest thing that almost never was. I frogged the little thing 4 times before I finally decided to actually follow the directions. For some reason I thought that just improvising the design would suffice but apparently the designer knows what they are doing and I don't when it comes to fitting hats on baby's heads. I did forgo the doubled over rib for a simpler version and the tassels were exchanged for pom poms. I also knit it in the round using the Magic Loop method and then used a 3 needle bind off instead of knitting it in pieces and sewing it up. Having said all that it seems I did make a lot of changes to the original pattern after all.

That's All Folks

We didn't have much of a Christmas around here but the holiday stash is over flowing. Where am I going to put all this junk until next year?

New Year's Resolution

Happy New Year!

Now that all the holiday gift knitting is over I am resolved to stay focused on finishing the Lillehammer, especially after I saw that gorgeous one walking around at Rhinebeck this year.



More easily said than done because now I am heading into this part of the pattern. Those large sections of color are scaring the bejeebies out of me as I am prone to puckering. I intended this as my "sit on my backside for two weeks while watching the Winter Olympics" project so managing this pattern AND serious TV watching is probably going to be interesting. I probably should have stuck with the simpler and much criticized Vancouver sweater but I have had my heart set on this one since well, Lillehammer. My last Olympic sweater actually took me 2 Winter Olympics to finish and it was just a simple Lopi. This is going to be a challenge.