Gifts and fun

Christmas has come and gone already, it's always a bit shocking. This year it was just the family for Christmas, often we've had rather large elaborate Christmas's with extended family either home or out of town, and they've always been great, but this year it was just us, and it was really, really lovely. I did a ton of Christmas knitting this year, in fact I knit almost all of my gifts, or at least part of them. I've already shared a lot of what I knit here. For my cousin Lesley it was the snowflake mittens and the little Inga hat, for my sister it was the Noro shawl, my dad got socks, my mom got socks, my friend Jo got socks and a scarf, my brothers got hats (they haven't been photographed yet) I did a lot of knitting... I'm sure I'm missing some.

Mom got the swallowtail shawl, knit in Tanis Fiber Arts yarn in an early variation of my Royal Flush colourway.

She unwrapped it on Christmas morning, tied it around her neck, and hasn't taken it off since! Honestly, she got up before I did, and when I'd come down for coffee in the morning, she'd already be wearing it! I'm thrilled, I think that means she likes it! 

Chris and I attempted to take a holiday photo of our little family... it's tough making a dog look cute when she's all legs! (Note: I'm wearing a new sweater! The Drops Jacket that I started in December got a lot of wear over the holidays, I'll post more about it soon.)

A last little update, my mom loves my colourwheel quilt so much, and is really on a big sewing kick these days, so I bought her the kit, we had tons of fun laying out all the colours and studying the fabrics. it's so neat because though some fabrics I can honestly say I would never have picked myself, they all come together the look really awesome. And it's a totally different bundle from the quilt I made, so we'll have lots of fabric scarps to play with when she's all done, and that's almost half the fun!

Mission accomplished

I was planning on ending today's post by telling you that I had started a new sweater. But for some reason when I upload pictures to blogger these days they appear in the reverse order of how I'd intended, so instead I'll start this post with my new sweater in progress. Remember last time how I said that I was itching for a sweater project? Well, I couldn't put it off until after Christmas as is proven by the fact that I cast on for the Drops Jacket on Friday. By now I've completed the back and am going to cast on for the front this afternoon. I'm knitting it in Elann Peruvian Sierra Aran in the Atlantis colurway. It's a really gorgeous deep blue green and I'm really loving it. When I opened the box from Elann and saw this deep rich blue I was a little surprised because it's not at all the colour that my monitor led me to believe I was ordering, but I like the colour I got much more then the colour I bought... if that makes any sense! (Basically, my monitor just displayed the colour as being much lighter and greener, but I prefer what the yarn looks like in person.) So, here it is, kind of boring at the stage it was at on Saturday when I took this picture:

Today's post is really supposed to be about how I finally finished a project that was in progress for almost two years! I cast on the left mitten in the spring of 07, and finished it in a matter of days, but didn't get around the doing the same for the right mitten until last week when I finally buckled down and got 'er done. And I'm so happy that I did! 

My motivation for finishing my Northern Lights Mittens (flickr link) was that I decided to give them to someone I know for Christmas, that proved to be just the kick in the pants I needed. Now that they're done (and I really have no idea what took me so long to finish this project, I loved the left mitten, you would think that I'd want to knit the right one...) anyways, now that they're done, I'm almost sad to part with them. I'm toying with the idea of making another pair for myself, but this time hopefully I can squeak them in in under two years!

Tough times for blogging

There has been a lot of knitting going on around here lately, lots of stuff I'm very happy with, but oddly, there has been very little blogging to go along with said knitting. There are a couple reasons for this: one, is that I'm knitting Christmas gifts, and I'm worried that if I post about them, then they won't be a surprise for the recipient, two, it's December, and the lighting has been pretty dreary these days, I've tried taking pictures of a couple things and they've all ended up looking sad and grey... I'll have to hope for a sunny day soon to properly document my work in a favorable light. 

So, while I'm not sharing any of my recent work here today, I thought that I was overdue for a post and decided to show and tell a couple images from my "fiber inspiration" photo file. Here's something I stumbled across on Etsy:

I am having an impossible time finding the seller of these adorable felted owls on Etsy right now, if I come up with something, I'll let you know asap. I'm not sure what they're supposed to be used for, but I think that they are just so cute!

Next up we have this gorgeous version of the Babette blanket. Inspired by this version, I bought the pattern, despite not knowing how to crochet. I plan on learning and making my own Babette in monochromatic tones someday.

And lastly for today, we have the Colourwheel quilt from Joelle Hoverson's awesome book. I bought the kit, I made my quilt a bit bigger to fit a twin bed, and have already had it quilted, now I just have to sew the binding and it'll officially be finished. I attempted to photograph mine, but it was too gloomy to really show it off at it's finest. It really is striking, I'm in love with it. And even though I've already been inspired by this quilt and made this project, I know the colour wheel will continue to inspire me for years to come.

Christmas knitting has been keeping me busy lately, but I'm almost done (I think) and am really looking forward to knitting a bigger project, for me! I've got a couple sweaters swimming around in my mind that I think I'll be swatching for soon.