9 days to Christmas...

Yes, nine days left and I have almost all my gifts made. I need to spend an hour or two with my sewing machine and cutting table, and then all the gifts I had planned on making as of December 1st will be done. And if I spend this weekend with my knitting needles, then the gift I hadn't planned on making will be done as well.

The sock is Knitpicks Gumballs with a fuzzy yarn from Hobby Lobby. The fuzzy yarn sure is fuzzy, isn't it? I decided to work some ribbing in the sock yarn, and then do a fold-over cuff. They're being quite fun to make. (Photo by ds)

Progress is being made on the MK swatches, but unfortunately I forgot I'd used my circular needles to make a project in between swatches, and I worked 3 swatches on size 10.5 instead of 8. I'm going to re-do one of them (the Mosaic swatch) but hope another one will be okay as is. The doily pictured here is another swatch. I ended up making two of them. The first one was so lovely ... right up until 5 stitches from the end on the last round. Then I discovered a mistake. Since the pattern was so delightful to knit, I decided to finish the first one off and knit a second one. The picture here is actually of my first attempt ... there are two errors in it, but sharp are the eyes that will find them. Mosaic knitting, at least on the wrong size needles, looks a whole lot better in pictures than it does live. I hope it will improve with different needles, but I have my doubts.

I borrowed Principles of Knitting from the library this week, and have alternately been amused by or or enjoyed it. The author does have some strong opinions, mostly that the way I knit is not the way one ought to. She also doesn't care for a tubular cast-on. That is one thing I have definitely learned from the MK program and will carry over into other knitting ... tubular cast ons! I made a pair of mittens (pictured) while waiting for my KP order, and used that cast-on. Then I read about how awful it was, and decided to knit another pair of mittens using the cast-on the book preferred. I'll give each pair of mittens a few months of Minnesota winter, and check to see which one survived better. Two out of two people that I've taught both to found the tubular cast-on easier to learn.

I hope to get most, if not all, of my MK paperwork done before Christmas - barring the hat and sweater design stuff. I have two swatches left to knit, one or two to re-knit, and a caboodle of paper to generate.

I am pleased to announce that I have solved the Norwegian Thumb Gore Mystery, with help from KnitU and the Internet. The pattern has a TYPO which is not mentioned in the errata for the book. Once I searched on 'Selbu' instead of the gore, I found it, and my confusion vanished like the snow outside my window will next May. (Slowly, and with some reluctance)
I'm not thinking about school any more. Standardized testing is finished, the booklets have been sent back to Hewitt, and dh is drywalling in the school room. It's a bad time to be thinking about cleaning.

Merry Christmas, all!