Look What Came in the Mail from Canada!

Thirty balls of Jamieson's Spindrift!
From Camilla Valley Farms in Canada.
(a few came in the old skein-style)

Who picked what:
JenniferKristin

Val

Wendy

Angela

Can't wait to start!

A Miracle!

Simma wore her mittens on a date!
THAT is the true test.
I saw this on the counter this am. And yes, that is a bronze lame purse.

Peppermint sticks

Here's my mom, sitting in her nice electric reclining chair, post-Christmas dinner, working a crossword puzzle. I think her Christmas socks (Karida's Neighborhood Fiber Company sock wool in, I think, the Logan Circle colorway) complement her cashmere track suit and designer glasses nicely, don't you?

I'm sold on this yarn. These socks turned out really, really nice and looked great on her feet (worn with wool Birkenstock clogs).

I know I posted this picture before, but I thought I'd include it again. The socks, done in a modified spiral pattern, remind me of peppermint sticks. The scarf, in the same colorway, I've wrapped and left for her to open on new year's.

Finished!

Behold. The socks. I barely finished them, grafting the toes and sewing in the loose ends in bed on Christmas morning. Karida's Neighborhood Fiber Company Seawool in the Lincoln Park colorway, which is beautiful.


As you can see, the heels are really light. I'd brought along what I thought was enough dark reinforcing and a spare spool of the light color (just in case) and ran out of the dark color before I'd even completed the first heel flap. So after calling around to all the area knitting shops and coming up empty (batting 100?) I ripped that heel flap back, used the light color, added a dark stripe (to harmonize with the striping of the socks) and continued on. As it was, I ran out of all my reinforcing on the very last row of the second sock.

Here's my bro modeling his socks. Below, the first pair I knit him, in "Mineral." He says they're kind of baggy. I think maybe I'm making my heel flaps too long. Or his feet are too small. Or both.

Early X-Mas

We do our gift-giving a little early since we will hit the road to CNY today. Here's a pic of the family in their knitted items. L-R: Noah in the hat, Hal in the scarf (but I also knit the hat last year) and Simma in her mittens. They are very nice for letting me post this!

We had fun today...

Angela had some silk "hankies" and a drop spindle.
She spun and plied the silk.

You can see some of the results above. Beautiful stuff!

Eewww

I think this looks creepy:And this doesn't look much better.
But they ARE warm.

Thrummed mittens. There's a good tutorial on how to make them at Hello Yarn.