What I did on my Autumn Vacation...

Last weekend we rented a house in beautiful West Virginia with Tony's parents and sisters and our godson Chris and his family rented another one down the road. We stayed in a beautiful house in Canaan valley that had a jacuzzi, two great big decks and was perfectly quiet. It was such a change from suburbia. It was fun hanging out with the kids. They were a little wild and crazy, but after some crayons, papers and instructions that they could not move until the entire paper was full of images they saw that day, they were okay.

We ran around, and climbed and saw deer and (we think we) saw bear tracks during our 4 mile uphill run. (it was not fun) I took this opportunity away from work/cooking/cleaning and all the otherd aily activities to catch up on my Christmas knitting.

I really do not think that I want to get into the habit of knitting my Christmas gifts because the pressure is just too much for me. Plus, I like knitting stuff for myself more than for anyone else. That way, the only person I dissapoint is me. However, all of Tony's aunts keep making comments about how I knit for the kids but not for them, and how they have never received anything from me, so I decided to make them all slippers.
The pattern is from Knit Two Together, and although I had originally checked the book out from the library this pattern made me buy the book. I want to eventually make tons of these for the house since we have a no shoes policy.

I made all four of them during my resting period on Sunday after chasing the kids around and while watching Ugly Betty reruns on Aik's computer, and finished them on the car ride home which was about 3 hours.

They are all made from left over yarn that I used to make the henri the bear, SOL for my friend, igor for Chris and the upcoming ivan for Chris's brother Brandon. (I am still in shock that these kids keep asking for igor's brother, and that the robot is carried around the house and the car all the time. yay for knitted toys!

Anyhoo, on the left are the pre-felt and the right the aft-felt pictures. I have to say - I think I over felted because they turned out a leetttlee bit small. However, I feel better knowing that Tony's aunts have really small feet and that they will shove their toesies in there one by one if I have to make them because these slippers are HAND MADE thankyouberimach.

I also took some time to work on the back of my Phildar Assymetrical Sweater. Darn size 3 needles take forever, but it sure does look nice! I am knitting on the back side of the knit stitches on the RS to make the stitches pop more (thanks olgita). I cannot wait to get more of this one done.

Swatches and Broken Robots

I am a real knitter! And you know how I know that? I actually made swatches! I was happily working on my second attempt at a bolero jacket but kept having dreams about these two Phildar projects. You know you have an illness when it consumes even your resting time.

I love the projects that Becky finishes from Phildar, and I have ordered a few catalogues from Knitntyme before, but for some reason have never started one. Now Phildar offers their catalogues translated to English right on their site! This sweater immediately caught my eye when I received my first order from them.

Olgita found this yarn for me and Macoco convinced me to buy it (yarn enablers are not hard to find now a days). I swatched it and Olgita and I washed it and it looks kinda felty, but I lluuvreee it. It is going to be a bit of a pain because I am doing 3X3 ribbing on size 3's. I started this past weekend and only have about 15 cm of the back done. But I think the final outcome will be gorgeous. It is a much darker gray (Mouse) than what the picture shows, and as you know, gray is the new black.

The other project that kept me up at night, or woke me up in the middle of the night, is this Phildar jacket - so - freaking - cute!! Since this project is going to require a large amount of yarn, I decided to go the inexpensive route and use Paton's 100% merino wool in Deep Olive ( I figure that color will look great with browns and blacks - which is pretty much all i wear). I know, not super fancy, but it will do. I might even ask my aunt to help me sew in a lining to help keep its shape. What do you guys think of my two new obsessions? I have started the sweater, but made myself not start the jacket until I complete my small number of Christmas gifts for Tony's aunts, which I am hoping to finish this weekend.

Ok, now for the robot part. You remember igor right? He was a gift for my godson's 5th birthday. Well, I went to see the little tazmanian devil this past weekend and found out igor had indeed become a favorite toy for the boys. How did I know this? Exhibit a and b below: I am sooooo happy that they are playing with him! He has now undergone drastic plastic surgery at chez lomester and is ready to go back to their house.