Christmas Knitting Update!

I finally got around to taking pictures of the two finished stockings. When I dig out my Christmas decorations this year I'll get a better picture of the other ones (if I dig all that stuff out now I might be tempted to decorate and it's still far too early). The light is getting funny and there's a pretty fine line in which I'm going to be able to get decent shots of things. We only have one major window in the house (two smaller ones on an awkward angle and then three small bathroom sort of windows) so that definitely limits where I can take pictures...

Here's the customized detail on each of them:

I used a pattern that had a repeating motif along where the name bands are, took that out and replaced it with the person's name, a little customized picture/motif and the year. I used the Knit Visualizer program and besides having to work everything upside down it was so easy to use. I wouldn't have had the patience if I had to do this all with graph paper. I think my favourite motif is my step dad's I put in an igloo and an inukshuk since he spent time up here in Inuvik and he's the reason we all came up here. I'm quite happy with all the other ones though. Some are modified from 1000 great knitting motifs and others are straight from there.

Last but not least, my Santa progress as of yesterday afternoon. I got his eyes, nose, beard and moustache sewn on last night and he's looking more and more how he should. The arms are done and stuffed but I have to wait until the jacket skirt is on before I can put those on... Then the hat, cuff/boot trimmings and the holly and I'm done! This pattern is great - no errors so far and things are pretty straight forward there's nothing that's vague or confusing (unlike some patterns I've tried to knit before) and so it's great for me to knit at work or just sitting around watching TV. Not a lot of concentration or huge stitch amounts to worry about (I've hit the largest amount so far at 96 across).

Temperature: -26C
Sunrise: 12:15
Sunset: 13:07

Bit of an update

Opps... I'm getting behind in what was supposed to be a regularly updated blog. I can't really pinpoint what's gotten in the way of me doing this. Nothing major has changed in the way of work or at home lounging around. I guess I just never think to type out a few words when I'm sitting here bored (maybe some of it has to do with the fact that I'd always like to include pictures of interesting things or pictures of finished knitted things and of course that isn't always possible).

On the knitting front, I've purchased four Jean Greenhowe knitting books and knitting some of the cute things in those books have been my primary focus as was finished the last two Christmas stockings that were starting to haunt me in my dreams. I can very proudly say that everyone in my immediate family (Glen, Marc, Cristine, Mum and Ted - oh and me too) all have beautiful, custom hand knit Christmas stockings. I only managed 4¾ stockings before Christmas last year so I really had to finish my mum's and Ted's before this season. I was mostly done with my mum's so I couldn't do anything with it saying 2006 on it so just for continuity's sake I knit Ted's with 2006 on it too... It seemed sort of rude if everyone had a 2006 stocking and he was the only one that had one saying 2007 (it would've also meant me redoing patterns and graphs that I'd already printed out). Anyway, I'm extremely proud of them and I'll be taking some pictures of them tomorrow (work has been getting in the way of me having actual time to do things before 11pm).

About the Jean Greenhowe stuff, I've knit four of her "Little Darlings" 3 of them are mostly finished. Now that I'm finished the stockings I'm making her Santa Claus. I'm so excited about this pattern. So far I've knit the legs and have done about 15 rounds after joining them together. It's going along quick and unless I hit some sort of knitting roadblock this should be done in no time. I'd love to get a nativity done too before Christmas. For some reason I don't get the multi-piece dread every time I look at her patterns (like I do with most of the toys in the books I have). I just realised that I haven't taken a picture of the third doll she's not 100% finished yet so when she gets a shirt and some shoe/sock things I'll take a picture.




So to accomplish all of this crazy multi coloured knitting, and fueled by a discontinued colours sale, I have two quite large boxes Peruvian Highland Wool from Elann.com sitting in my living room (to add to the quite large collection I have so far). This is by far my favourite yarn for almost everything so I don't think it'll be to hard to go through all of it. All the stuff on the couch is what I've gotten in the last month and then the stuff in the zippered bag on top is what I had to begin with (it used to be sitting nicely by colour in there but we've been rearranging the house and it's gotten tossed around a bit). Also note Glen in the background pretending to ignore me taking pictures of my yarn.


I think that's about it for now. Definitely trying to take pictures of the stockings tomorrow if I get a chance and if there's some sun.

Sunrise: 11:47am
Sunset: 3:32pm