oh, the joys of shopping for yarn. my favorite yarn store now is article pract. today i bought a ball of red splash and a ball of red fog tree yarn alpaca to make a scarf for my mother-in-law.



i also bought myself a sock pattern book and needles and yarn to make my first pair of real socks.



i made a pair of fancy footies for my mom, using debbie bliss merino chunky in blue and purple and crystal palace tingle for the trim. i kind of figured out the heel, but it was a bit holey looking so i sewed it up from the inside. here they are on my mom's feet



i'm hoping that socks are fun, because they would be a lot cheaper to knit lots of then most of the other things i'm making.

my sister has requested some very ugly hotpads for work (she's a waitress and bartender at the claim jumper in phoenix). i found these lovely red heart yarns at wal-mart in phoenix - i think im going to use all 3 together to make the ugliest hotpads in the universe.



here's my progress so far on the red splash scarf - lloyd is a superkitty! i cast on 14 stitches - i'm going to have to figure out how long my mil wants it.



i know it seems like i have a favorite kitty, but i swear that lloyd is just always right beside me. here's a cute picture of tim, and i really think that there are some smudges on the camera lens, not tons of crap all over the rug . . .

today i was very excited to give heather her christmas/going away/housewarming present - a sewing machine. she was very happy. and brainchild that she is, she figured it out rather quickly. no more using her soon to be mother-in-law's ancient sewing machine for her, thank you! here she is in my kitchen figuring out the bobbin:



and her first stitches!



and here are some of the 60 stitches that the machine can make - fancy-schmancy! i expect an intricately stitched pillowcase next christmas!



while we were doing all of this, the pets were alternating between being cute and bad. here is oscar looking cute on my yellow chair, and also very guilty when he climbed on the table.



lloyd thinks he's helping when he sits on my laptop keyboard, and oscar loves to sit in chairs like a person. harry looks on at all this badness from a safe place. maybe one day when he isn't scared anymore he will be as bad as the other pets.



oscar is good at looking guilty



and keyser is bored with all of them.

oh christmas, you make me so stressed, and then you're over in a blink! see you next year. until then, here is the first of many christmas present pictures. bryan gave me a lovely ballwinder. i tried it out right away and was very excited by the results. the ball isn't as pretty as i was imagining, but it took about 1/1 zillionth of the time. yay for the ballwinder! now i can wind all my yarn into lovely balls for lloyd to attack and eat.



got back from visiting with bryan's parents tonight - we were gone for 4 days and the cats had a grand pee party. and the back wall of our house seems to have begun disintegrating, which along with the water heater leaking has led to a wonderful clay-muck cat litter coating of the linoleum in the laundry room. time to wish our landlord happy holidays!

the ever-elusive harry was playing with keyser's tail tonight - i think that's the closest he's ever gotten to mr. king-of-the-castle. too bad this picture doesn't have sound effects or you could hear keyser's angry growling.

how is already december 20th? it was just november! as always, i have put way too many things on my to do list. i might have to make a bunch of coupons to replace the things i didn't get to finish. bleck.

i started (another) hat for suzanne yesterday based on the "sparkle hat" pattern in stitch n' bitch. i'm using lemon drop lamb's pride bulky and crystal palace whisper in a yellow/orange. i looooove the way the hat feels - it is so soft! it looks a little crazy - and very reminiscent of elmo's friend zoe. keyser models it well. i just might make the uptown scarf from weekend knitting with the same combination for myself (gasp!) - if and when i ever make something for myself.



lots and lots to do today: bunches of lab work, cleaning the house, knitting, and putting together the last of the christmas crafts and packing them into a suitcase. i will report on my progress later today.

great cesear's ghost, heather and i were ultra-productive today on our christmas crafts. we are very nearly finished. we're both itching to post pictures of our masterpieces, but we'll have to wait a week . . .

here are two hats that i made for christiane - she is due today. i used the umbilical cord pattern from stitch n' bitch, but modified the top to a loop for the pink one. the red one is made with debbie bliss cashmerino aran, and the pink one is made from snowflake. i didn't check my gauge before i started the red one, so it is pretty tiny, but christiane's other daughter had a small head, so she thinks that this one will be perfect. i really like how fluffy the pink one is, but it was an absolute bitch to work with. seriously, i very nearly threw it in the road and drove over it. good thing i didn't - it's super cute.





and here is an extremely fluffy scarf i made for cheryl. i used crystal palace tingle and merino frappe held together, although you can't see the merino frappe at all, except for in the monster fringe. i decided not to buy more tingle or rip it out and cast on less stitches to make it the length i wanted, so i added mega-fringe instead. it's very purple, and cheryl likes purple, so hopefully she'll like this.

happy 11th anniversary to me and bryan! he left me some lovely red tulips in the bathroom this morning and on my desk in lab, and gave me a wonderful new orange skin to replace my blue one. it's very orange and very fuzzy.





we're going to see a movie i'm very much looking forward to, A Very Long Engagement. it has the same actress and director as my favorite movie ever, Amelie. it's only playing in the city - it doesn't open everywhere until christmas day.

here is another present i made for suzanne - a really nice pick scarf. brian was so kind to model it for me last night. it's really really long. it's the uptown scarf pattern from weekend knitting. i held together 2 strands of lamb's pride bulky and one of crystal palace merino frappe. i really like how it turned out.





and here is lloyd helping me and heather label all of our crazy christmas crafts last night. he was very helpful. we're almost finished!

i finished robert's beanie this morning while heather drove me to school. and she was so kind as to model it for the picture. what a lovely head she has. thanks heather! i do like the hat, but it's a bit on the warm and fuzzy side for phoenix - i think robert might request another one made out of cascade 220.

sure it is, but that doesn't mean it's not fun. an incredibly usless fact i found yesterday: Coconuts kill more people in the world than sharks do. Approximately 150 people are killed each year by coconuts. i wonder who compiled all the coconut-related deaths.

the ducks were happy this morning, quacking and pooping on my porch. oh sven and erika, soon you will be pooping in portland.



and here is a sleepy lloyd after i woke him up when i left my knitting chair at 4 this morning. way to set a time limit to stop knitting, even though it was a ridiculous one.

the pom-pom is as big as i feared it would be. and i somehow thought that the orange would be in the middle of it, but instead it's at the sides, contributing to its oval-shaped appearance. i think i like it now, after securing it better so it's not flopping around everywhere, but i'm not sure if suzie plum will. harry is definitely frightened of it.



some things i've already made:

a lovely kitty bed from this pattern at Wendy Knits, my favorite knitting blog. I need to send her a picture to put in her gallery - her kitty looks a lot like lloyd.



and here is another view of the giant pom-pom along with a lovely scarf i made for melissa. i think she'll like it - it's really soft. i made it with crystal palace splash and some black wool that i can't remember what the brand was. there is a nice splash in pink - maybe i'll get it for a scarf for suzanne . . .



insane cat man.

here was the view tonight from outside Koshland, a building on campus. you can see all the way across the bay to somewhere in marin, maybe tiberon, i'm not sure. very pretty.




we went out to dinner tonight to meet james' new sweetie. i got a bunch done on robert's black beanie:



maybe i could finish it tonight if i'm industrious. but first, lab work.

still riding the excitement of my new blog, i took a picture of my very messy knitting chair at 4 this morning to inspire me to clean it up.



and tim was not happy with a bright flash in her face. she looks very annoyed.



and then a strange robot kitty followed me into the bedroom to kill me in my sleep.



even though i went to bed at 5 am, i was still inspired to clean up before i left for school at, oh, 3pm. lazy lazor.



here is the lovely pink hat i finished for my sister in cascade 220. i used the pattern for a seaman's cap i found here, but i messed up and didn't put any more rib after the one row of knit. i need to learn how to read. i think it came out ok anyway.



i then had a spectacular idea to spruce up this hat with a pom-pom on top. sounded great at 1 am. i had what looked like plenty left from my one skein of yarn, but i was a bit nutso when i made my little cardboard template. i ran out of the lovely pink and have now started putting a layer of orange lamb's pride worsted on, in the hope of finishing the pom-pom before i die. this pom-pom is going to be giant. it might come to life and eat my sister's head. i'm going to make it easily detachable in case she runs away from it after she unwraps it. lesson learned about thinking about pom-pom final size before i start with the cardboard and scissors.

you can see more pictures of the kitties and of other things here, where Bryan has posted all his pictures.

here is a picture of harry and lloyd to compare to:

there are two kittens next door that must be siblings to the two i found and took in in June. cute cute cute.

my very secretive friend just informed me of her top-secret knitting-related blog, and since i've been itching to start one of my own, she showed me how. oh happy day.