I am in Telluride, with Fatty and the girls and part of my family.  The skiing is good - the snow is soft, but man, it is cold outside.  It has been a nice getaway so far and we have a few days left.  Christmas was wonderful with the exception of a very bad cold.  In fact, it was so good that not only did Santa come, but the tooth fairy paid Kate a visit too.  Both of my girls have lost teeth on Christmas.  Crazy, huh?

So 2007 is ending.....and, geographically speaking, I am right where I was when it began.  I'mlooking forward to 2008.  I have a mental list of resolutions that I plan on putting on paper in the next few days.  I also have some handmade gifts to share and some new knitting on the needles.  Lots of good stuff - well, at least I think so.

Happy New Year to you.  I just have a feeling that 2008 is going to begood - really good.

The shopping is finished.

Most of the presents are wrapped.

The holiday cards are ready to go.

There is a wee bit of knitting to finish - mostly weaving in ends and sewing in a casing.

I am not stressed.

Let me repeat.  I am not stressed.

And Scout is finally using her bed.  No cat nip involved either.

That, in itself, may be a Christmas miracle.

I am going to take some time off from the blog to just be.  I hope you have a splendid holiday filled with fun and laughter, family and friends, good food and drink.

I have a great feeling about 2008.  See you then.

I got together with some of my craft swap buddies Wednesday night to do a yankee swap.  I have no idea why it is called a yankee swap, but basically we all agreed to make one big(ger than normal) item instead of the standard 5 people, make 4 things.  We drew numbers and the (un)lucky number 1 opened a gift.  Number 2 could steal the item number 1 opened or open another package.  And so on. And so on.  (Remember those shampoo commercials?).

I was very excited for this swap.  I have so many ideas that I want to try out, but most of them are not realistic when I am making 10 or so items on a budget.  Other than the fact that I started and finished my craft Wednesday (those gifts for the nephews had to go in the mail!), this was a perfect swap for me.

My most favorite thing I have made since my patchwork bag is this blanket.  Really.  Truly.  I had a hard time giving it up.  It came out exactly how I envisioned it in my mind.

I was completely inspired by this gorgeous blanket on the Purl Bee.  Of course, I put my own twist on it.  I bought the dark charcoal gray wool at my local fabric store (on sale!) and then made a patchwork binding out of fabric from the stash.  This bugger was hard to photograph - and it was about 6 p.m. and dark at the time - so I don't think its true beauty comes across.  But trust me, it is luxurious.

It measures about 60" square and the binding is 1 inch wide on each side.  And it was fast to make (about 4 hours including 1 1/2 hours of hand sewing)!  The hardest part was figuring out how to balance the patchwork pieces - I am a bit nutty about scale and color.  That's probably why I have never tackled a real quilt.  But I digress.  The second hardest part was the hand sewing of the binding.  I rushed this bit - you can see the slip stitch - if I could have taken my time, the stitches would have been more uniform and less visible, I am sure.  I don't think it matters.  It went to a great home.

In case you were wondering, I did buy enough wool to make two.  I had a feeling I might need one, too.

I finished all the gifts for the nephews and mailed them off yesterday.  Phew!  The only trouble I encountered was how to wrap some odd-sized, soft items without having to buy overly huge boxes.  This is what I came up with.

Muslin bags!  I cut large rectangles and sewed up two sides - actually, I used the serger so it didn't matter if everything wasn't lined up exactly so.  I popped the items in and closed them with a bow.  Had I thought of this sooner, I would have freezer paper stenciled or appliqued right onto those, you know, to dress them up a bit.  Oh well.  Maybe the kids can do that with their moms....just a thought.  Of course, you can use any fabric, but I had this on hand and it is inexpensive, so it fit the bill.  Also, it cost a lot less than a big gift bag and tissue would have.  Finally, they were easy to throw in a box and send just like that.

I know I promised a finished project - that'll be tomorrow.  Back to my Christmas cards.  Yes, that's me, always at the last minute.

While I thought about pulling a number out of a hat, with 152 comments, that didn't seem feasible.  Instead, I used a random number generator and got this:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

127

Timestamp: 2007-12-19 13:39:28 UTC

Congratulations Jen!

(Ok,I've been knitting for 4+ years and today I read about tuck stitches.What are these?! Does this book have the answer? I'm hoping to find out.
Posted by:Jen  |December 18, 2007 at 08:51 PM)

For the record, I don't know what tuck stitches are either!  Jen, email me your address and I will get the book in the mail to you right away.

In other knitting matters, here is Fatty's completed hat.  It's been finished for awhile now, but I've neglected to take photos until now.

I wanted to post the pattern for you all, but just haven't had the time to write it all down.  The 70's ski hat over on the Purl Bee is made almost the same way.  Theirs has stripes, mine has fair isle  and theirs has two decreases and mine has four decreases per round.  On mine, I knit one round between my decrease rounds.  Have I lost you?  If you need help, email me and I will try my best to explain it better.  I do use the provisional cast on, but, alas, no cashmere for Fatty.  Just some super soft bel air by ggh.  Love that yarn.  I used it to make these mitts for Meg which just happen to match the green cabled hat.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Back tomorrow with a completed project I can actually share (imagine that!) and my newest wrapping technique.

or rather, Knit Speak.

The folks at Stewart, Tabori & Chang sent me two copies of Knit Speak - An A to Z Guide to the Language of Knitting Patterns by Andrea Berman Price.  Yes, two copies.  One for me and one for one of you.

This little book (about 5" x 7") is a wonderful resource to tuck in your knitting bag.  It reads like a dictionary, listing all those abbreviations and confusing terms from the beginning of the alphabet to the end.  It covers the symbols, too.  You can find out what an asterisk means when you see it in a pattern and why there is a difference between brackets, [ ], and parentheses, ( ).  How do you Sk2p?  It's in there.  Kitchener stitch?  Covered.  Different cast on methods are included as are cables and bobbins.  The illustrations are wonderfully simple and easy to follow, also.  And this my friends just scratches the surface.  Knit Speak is a very comprehensive reference tool and I feel lucky to have one on hand.

So how do you get yours?  Leave a comment on this post before 8:00 a.m. EST (New York time) Wednesday, December 19th.  In your comment, tell me what knitting term befuddles you the most.  I will randomly pick one winner.  If that doesn't work out, you can always buy it here.

Now, back to gift making.....

I am in the midst of crazy, last-minute sewing to finish up our gifts for our six nephews.  They all have to be mailed and I really need to have it out the door tomorrow.  All was going well until I cut through a seam on one item last week.  Yikes.  I really don't have time to re-do this item, so I have been scrambling brainstorming to think of something else I can complete in my limited time.  I also wanted to make the boys appliqued shirts and had a hard time coming up with fresh ideas.

Sunday morning, Kate was up earlier than Jane.  I asked her if she had any ideas for the boys.  With ten minutes, a stack of paper and a marker, she came up with more ideas than I did in days of thinking it over.

According to Kate, boys like things like spiders and ants.  Turtles and lions, too.  She gave me enough good ideas to jump start my brain.  Thanks for the inspiration, Kate.  You also reminded me to keep it simple.  I swear that sometimes I just forget.  Simple = fast and good.

I had four t-shirts finished in two hours and the other two got completed last night.  It felt good to check that item off the list.  I should be able to check the next one off later today.

It is beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

It's pretty much the same every day while the clementines are in season.  Have a great Friday!