Thank you to all the RAOK bloggers who let me know my feeds were working right. I’m trying to work out a system to read through everyone else’s blogs so I can actively perform RAOKs. I don’t get internet at work so lately I’ve been “plucking” people’s blogs with software for my Palm and reading when I can, but I would have to be MUCH more consistent with it to keep up with everyone. I’m trying to instill a time of the morning or night to sit down and read through as many as I can. If any RAOKers have tips on how to handle the bulk, or keep up with everyone, PLEASE let me know!

I would have loved to have slept in this morning, but Yannick called around 9:30 from up north looking for computer help. They were trying to install a shower unit but for some reason they didn’t have the installation guide. It was available online, but as a pdf file, and they didn’t have Acrobat Reader installed on the computer. I tried talking them through it but it was very hard not to get aggrivated. For one thing, I was trying to direct Yannick on what to click but without being able to see the screen it was a little hard. Then there’s the fact that they (“they” being Yannick’s parents) have a Mac. I have a PC. I am pretty well advanced when it comes to the PC, which makes me the family’s resident “go to” person for computer questions. Let’s not get into how much longer I have to stay each time I go to my parents’ place and as I’m going to leave I get hit with “Could you just take a look at…..” But I digress. I think I managed to walk him through downloading the reader from Adobe.com, but then it took a while before he was able to find where it was saved. Not knowing Mac, I couldn’t help him on that end. The one time I used their laptop got me frazzled enough that I almost kissed my PC when I got home. And that was with it in my hands. Trying to help long distance is NOT good for our relationship! He finally found where it had saved but for some reason it froze every time he tried to install it. Unless he selected to install it in Asian. I have no idea. He finally did install it in Asian but when he went back to the manufacturer’s website it still said he didn’t have the reader. That was the point at which I gave up. Did I mention this took 4 long distance calls? And that it was detrimental to our relationship?

I did manage to head over to my LYS even though my class was cancelled (hence the overwhelming desire to sleep in). They carried the exact same buttons as in the pics for the dog sweater, so I grabbed them.

This is the photo from the book showing the finished sweater (the one on top, Snazzy Jacket with Faux Fur).

This is a (grainy) shot of the same sweater minus the faux fur (hence, Snazzy Jacket). You can see the buttons they used.

These are the buttons I bought.

Not bad eh? I was glad my LYS carried them. I know from reading Jo Knits that there is a huge button store in Montreal, but I haven’t gone there yet. I had to go to the shopping center that has my LYS anyways ‘cus I had a meeting at 11:00 (so scheduled when I still thought there was a class). I don’t want to get into the meeting now ‘cus it’s something I’d rather keep to myself for a while. But it went very well, and I was able to be home by 12:30 having taken care of everything I’d wanted except go to the post office and return a stylus to Stylus Central for exchange, ‘cus I forgot.

After a very nice lunch of nachos I settled into more knitting. I really had thought at first that I wouldn’t enjoy a patt based on so much ribbing, but I have to say that I find it kinda relaxing. The patt shows up so much better when it’s stretched, but I know it will look stretched on a dog so I don’t mind seeing it closer together now. I managed to get to 10″, so when I get home tonight I’ll be able to cast on additional sts for the turtleneck, which is done in the round.

One good thing is that by working on my Denise needles, I can switch right to the smaller needles without having to waste time.

So I’m off to my parents’ house for dinner, but I just might have more progress later on.

Yannick left for up north this afternoon, so I was SURE I’d have plenty of prime knitting time. Don’t ask me what I did to occupy my time, but all I know is that somewhere around 8:45 I realized that I hadn’t done ANYTHING. I gave my little bootie a kick (hard, but I’m flexible) and got some nice progress in.

I finished dog sweater the second (050102). The pic sucks ‘cus I have no light in my office, and also I don’t have a small dog or dog-shaped stuffed animal to model for me. I also don’t have any buttons yet, so it wouldn’t stay on anyways.

I included a copy of Interweave Knits for scale purposes. For the sweater, picture the dog facing the magazine. It’s size small, so picture a chihuahua (sp?) or something. The curved upper part is actually 2 neck pieces that meet under the dog’s chin with a button, and the strap goes under the tummy and attaches with 2 buttons. In the book the pattern comes from, The Gift Knitter by Tara Jon Manning, they used cute little buttons with a paw print on it. My LYS says they carry those buttons, so I’m going to take a look next time I’m there.

Before he left Yannick had told me that Nicole from the Wool Shop called to cancel our class tomorrow, so, knowing I could now sleep in for a bit, I decided to immediately cast on for doggie sweater the third (050103). One hour’s worth of knitting gave me about 2.5″ of progress. It’s a really easy ribbed pattern with a 2 row repeat that I’ve already memorized, so I’m picturing myself breezing through it tomorrow. Of course, we’ll have to see how tomorrow actually goes.

See? I promised to be more forthcoming with the pictures. I deserve a reward. I’m thinking a nice vanilla coffee tomorrow. In any case, it’s sometime after 1:00 am and I’m going to bed.

When I joined the RAOK group a few weeks ago, I read much about “feeds”. While I still don’t fully understand the concept…I have one anyways. So for those interested in a site feed just scroll down a bit to where it says “Site Feed” next to the little email box, and that’s the link.

In other news, I had a great big laugh Friday night. Unfortunately, my friends were all downstairs so when they heard me cackling away the general concensus was that I’d lost my mind. I have, but that’s besides the point. What I found so amusing was placing this:

The first finished dog sweater, #050101

on my cat, thus obtaining this:

Yes, it’s much too small for him. All the more reason why I was cackling away. It was half sad, half pathetic the way he’d walk around the floor and occassionally look up at me with those huge eyes like I’d betrayed him. Ok, so I felt a bit guilty. Not guilty enough to destroy the pictures, however.

(Addendum to this post from later on today- is it just me, or do I have the cutest cat in the world? I mean really, tiny head + big eyes + big ears = very adorable cat. Oh, and yes the dresser is messy but really, it’s just the spare bedroom so I can just close the door and not have to look at it. Back to the cat. Can’t you just get lost in his eyes?)

I never fully explained about the dog sweaters, did I? In December, my grandmother went into a local pet accessories store and they saw her dog wearing the sweater she’d knit for him, and asked her to knit sweaters for them to sell. She said she didn’t have time, but I told her to tell them I’d be interested. I went in to meet with them and brought a few books of dog sweater patterns to get some ideas worked out. They told me which they liked, or didn’t, and what colors they moved most. So I’m in the process of making some samples to show them, and if they like them they might buy sweaters to sell. I’m making about 8 samples, all in small sizes just so they can see the styles.

I almost started a flame war when I mentioned this on the knitlist, because many people emailed me offlist to warn (or lecture) about how illegal it is to sell knits that are not my design. They had me so freaked out that I contacted the two publishing companies; Interweave Press and Penguin. Both thanked me for calling and said that there was absolutely no problem in selling the finished knitwear, provided that I cited the designers. My original intent was to have a “wash info” tag, and on the back would be “hand knitted by Jennifer” and then “design by Designer’s Name, from Book Name”, so I was relieved.

So to anyone who has an idea like this, don’t listen to people who say one thing or another. Go right to the source and sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I was. Interweave Press even wished me luck!

I don’t remember what I’ve talked about lately so I’ll just recap as well as I can.

I mentioned starting doggie sweater the second at the MKG meeting on Tuesday. Wednesday was a night I’d rather forget, so we’ll move on to Thursday. After work I was able to make some progress. I got so frustrated though! I found a mistake in the pattern. Once you divide for the neck and work each side with its own end of the ball, the instructions say “working each side separately, BO 3 sts on each neck edge 1 time, then dec 1 st ea neck edge 3 times on alt rows”. I worked to the end of the 13 sts (well, 10 sts, then BO 3) and realized that I couldn’t work it that way…the BO would leave a gap for when I tried to work back. So I decided to work the BO over 2 rows- work the 13 sts, on the beg of next 13 do the BO 3, work the 10 rem, then on the following row work the 10, then on the next 13 do the BO 3, and work the last 10. Only I must have been tired because for some reason I worked every dec that way too…as in work one side, BO 1 st, finish, then turn the work, work across, BO 1 st, finish row. I finished the neck and instead of having 1.25″ from the original split I had almost 3″! I was about to email the knitlist for help when I remembered the other decs are DECS, not BOs. I still had to do the BOs over 2 rows, but then I just did the decs on the RS rows, and then my “work 1 row even” became the WS rows, leaving me a nice edge ‘cus I did the decs 1 st in from the edge. I still wound up almost 0.5″ too much, but I don’t care. I had no choice, ‘cus of the BO, and besides, these two pieces wrap around the neck and button to close. I don’t think any dog would mind a bit more breathing room.

I wanted to finish that sweater last night, and possibly start the third, but babysitting 4 boys all under 8 does not lead to smooth knitting time. So I took the night off knitting. But I will work on it today. And I will do my best to start including more pictures with my posts. I don’t have a digital camera, but my Palm does take pictures. It’s what I’ve been using so far, but sometimes I don’t add pics ‘cus to upload them I need to sync my unit, and I have a lot of programs so it takes a bit of time. I’ll see about just telling it to sync the photos so I can include more here. That will be my blog resolution for the new year. 🙂

Well it’s been a somewhat productive week for me so far.

On Sunday I went with Yannick to Ikea to search for storage solutions. I have a big armchair in my office that has been serving as my stash container, and has steadily become overwhelmed. Yannick won’t let me go the route of the all-purpose plastic bin because it offends his sense of style, and I wanted something that would let me make attempts at organization. Our original idea was to head over to Reno Depot and pick up some white melamine with pre-drilled holes for adjustable shelves and make cubbyholes like at yarn shops. Then we thought melamine might be too expensive so we considered plywood or chipboard. Then I remembered about Ikea and we zipped over, reminding ourselves in advance that Ikea is Evil and would not let us leave until we’d done the entire route through the store. There were some cute cubicle-like things that hang from tabs and are made out of vinyl or canvas…almost like shoe racks, and you can purchase little “drawers” to fit inside for organizing bits of left-overs. Unfortunately they stuck out 13″ and the clearance I had was 9″. We ended up compromising, and here is a shot of my office/craft room:

right-hand wall showing filing cabinet, printer/combo unit, comfy chair and 2 rows of storage- 1 row of 3 canvas bags holding stash for projects for me, 1 row of 6 bags holding projects in some state of progress

back of office showing computer/desk and 1 row of 3 bags holding stash for dog sweaters

shot of left wall showing shelves of craft books, white vase with straight needles, small box for circs (2nd shelf) and 2 rows of 6 bags per row holding assorted stash

On Monday I finished the knitting of dog sweater the first (code 050101). Commenced weaving in the billion (ok, 15-ish) ends.

Tonight I finished the weaving while at the January meeting of the MKG (Montreal Knitting Guild). If anyone was there, I was the blonde with the ponytail in the bright coral sweatshirt who asked the question about adding sts when creating a cable. I scored, stash-wise, too. Sally, the current president, is moving, and thus reducing her stash load. My stash load increased. I got 10 skeins of Briggs and Little Tuffy in a comfy-looking gray, another 10 in a bright, smile-enducing red, and 10 balls of Noro which I believe is Silk Garden (content silk/wool) in a romantic gray/purple blend. Very excited to welcome the new members of my stash family. Am embarassed that some of the stash is hiding in the closet ‘cus there are no more canvas hanging bags left to hold any of it. Will have to return to Ikea for another 2 packages. Hmm…3 bags per pack? Better make it 3 more!

In further productivity for tonight, I joined the MKG, signed up for the Canadian Guild of Knitters, and volunteered my name to the person in charge of the newsletter as a person to call with questions about crocheting.

I ALSO managed to cast on and work 21 rows of dog sweater the second. (Ok, not that much of an accomplishment ‘cus the yarn is worsted weight on 6.5mm (10.5 US) needles so it flew by, but at least it’s started!)

I ALSO volunteered for something today but I’ll wait until there’s more info on it to mention it here.

And I will remember to blog about the dog sweaters very soon.

Where was I? Oh yeah, last Saturday. Now I’m a full week behind. [insert expletive here]

When we got home from Valleyfield our plan was to catch a movie. I’d wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera on Wed after the shiva, but I was nice and helped Yannick job hunt instead. So Sat he suggested we see Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Unfortunately we got home too late to see the early show, and I wasn’t sure I’d be awake long enough for the late show. Fortunately one of my brothers called to see if we wanted to get together with he and his girlfriend (this would be the brother who’s NOT in Australia). They came over and brought Scene It, a dvd/board game. Bringing any kind of game over is very dangerous because Mike and I are very competitive. EXTREMELY competitive and like to prove we’re smarter than the other. You know the riddles that go something like “A man does blah blah blah, then blah blah, then blah blah happens. Why?” and you have to ask “yes” or “no” questions? We spent most of our family holiday dinners trying to outsmart the other in figuring out the answers. Oh, I’m sure other family members thought they were playing along too, but really it was just Michael v.s. Jennifer. We even transcended into the next level of riddles, simply “Blah blah blah happens. Why?” If you still don’t believe me, then listen to (read) this. In May 2003 we decided to put our pride on the line and really see who was smarter. We both spent many years doing puzzle books, the kind with crosswords and fill-ins, but also 100s of other kinds of insane brain torture based on manipulating the English language. I’m an English Lit major, and I’ve been reading since I was 2. Of course I’m smarter. He, as is often the case with 2nd oldest children in families of 4 children, thinks I’m wrong and he’s the best. We decided to put it to the test and went out on a special errand just for this purpose and bought 2 copies of the same puzzle book. We cut out the answer section and gave it to our mom for safe keeping, and the challenge was on. There were around 450 puzzles in that book. At our last check, I have between 50 and 60 left to complete (including any unfinished puzzles). He has somewhere around 130 remaining. Not satisfied that this proves I’m smarter, for Hanukah this year he bought us each another book. The big ones that are actually bound like a paperback. With 530+ freaking pages! 771 PUZZLES! So we slog our way through again. He thinks he’s winning because he has completed about 20 more puzzles than I have. I know I’m going to win because our strategies differ. He goes through the book and finds easy puzzles and whips through them. I start on page 1 and go through chronologically through, slogging through the hard ones as I get to them. I believe that by the time he finishes the easy ones he’ll have to struggle with the harder ones, while I’ll already have many of them done, and thus whip through the rest of the book more easily. We shall see…

In any case, all this means is that what for ordinary people is a fun night playing a board game, is really a competition between us. Sure, Yannick and Kristin were playing too…but really they weren’t. Really, it was, again, simply Michael v.s. Jennifer. I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember who won. It was either Mike or Yannick. Probably Mike. I know I was close. We started a second game and I was waaay in the lead, but then our supper arrived. I’m sure the only reason we never finished that game is ‘cus Mike knew it was mine to win. It really sucked that I didn’t get any knitting done Sat, but after the crochet bonanza, I wanted to give my hands a break.

Sunday Yannick and I meant to go for brunch then a movie, but woke up too late so we went straight to see Phantom. Yes, this is my justification as to why popcorn is a brunch food. Yes I’ve also rationalized it as snack food, breakfast food, and dinner food. Don’t argue with me. The movie, in a word, was breathtaking. Stunning. Gorgeous. Sets to die for. I think I started to cry when the opening music began to swell. (Don’t laugh, this is common with me. When I’d attend my sister’s dance or fashion shows I’d start to cry when the audience clapped at the start of the show. The rise in emotion always gets to me. Ok, everything gets to me.) Yannick, I’m sure, had a good laugh watching me move in my seat. He said he knew I was entranced because I actually put my bag down and there was still popcorn in it. All I know is that I started the movie sitting back in my chair and found myself at the end at the very edge of the seat, my hands folded on the low wall in front of me (we had the seats right over the entrance doors), my chin on the backs of my hands, mouth open. He told me afterwards I looked like the way he heard grandparents describe bringing their kids to see technicolor for the first time. Awestruck. He said that was a big part of why he enjoyed the movie: watching me. Yeah yeah, sounds sweet. He’s just not admitting that he was laughing at me behind his popcorn.

After the movie he dropped me off at home and went up north to help his parents out for a few days. I stayed here and went for dinner with Jackie and Kevin who had just returned from their honeymoon cruise and extra week in Florida, and Debbie. We borrowed Scene It from Mike, so once Julie and Rich showed up and we’d looked at the vacation photos, we played a few rounds. I won both games. Take that Mike!

Monday: stayed home and vegged. Did a bunch of paperwork for the dog sweaters which I’ll cover in greater detail in another post. Started Dog Sweater A and finished the back.

Tuesday: Finished underpanel of Dog Sweater A, among other, non-knitting things (read: puzzles). Went to see The Aviator with Yannick’s mom after work, then drove her to B’s.

Wednesday: Seamed underpanel to back. leaving the armholes open. I’m going to take this moment to say how much I enjoy mattress stitching. Yes, when I have to do it I tend to stall, but once I actually sit down and start doing it I LOVE how it comes together invisibly. And if I do a good job and end up with what looks like continuous stitches, I’m thrilled! Ok, enough geeking now. I got very proud of my excellent seaming and got cocky and decided to weave in my ends. Then our bookkeeper comes in to work for a bit and I show her the tube-like thing I’ve created (no ribbing or cuffs or anything yet). She asks what it is. Rather than tell her, I take out the book I’ve gotten the pattern from, and show her the picture of the finished product. Or rather, that’s what I wanted to do. What I actually did was take one look at the finished product and smack myself in the forehead for being cocky and weaving in my ends. See, the back is pretty much a rectangle with a slightly tapered bottom. The underpanel is a modified triangle. You start at the point and work down to the width, leaving those sts on a holder. I had seamed the underpanel in place with the holder at the top, ready to use those live sts in the neck ribbing. I’d even cut a piece of yarn from the other end of the skein for the seaming to avoid another end to weave in, since the ball was still attached to the sts on the holder. Well, the picture CLEARLY shows the underpanel coming to a point under the chin. I’d seamed it in UPSIDE DOWN. Does anyone remember me being cocky and weaving in all my ends? Yeah, I left fixing that for Thursday.

Thursday: I fixed that. Not happy, especially since I wanted to reduce bulky seams so I untwisted the 3 plies of the yarn and wove each in individually. At least I managed to undo it all without cutting into either of the knitted pieces, so I didn’t have to reknit anything. I was so annoyed that I didn’t do any more knitting for the day. I got home, read with Yannick for a bit, then went to bed.

Friday: I picked up all the sts for the collar and did 3″ in 1×1 rib using brown, the underpanel color, then bound off. When I got home I remembered that I also wanted to use the brown to make the back of another sweater which would have a pink underpanel and cuffs. I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough brown to do both, and remembered I’d planned to do the cuffs/ribbing of the first one in the blue since that was the only sweater using the blue. So I promptly undid my bind off and frogged all 3″ of 1×1 brown rib. *sigh* Is this sweater whipping by or what? Went to dinner with Julie and Rich, came home, and was asleep by 11:00.

Saturday (today): reason I was asleep by 11:00 last night? Had to be at the hairdresser for 7:30 this morning. Touched up my hair color and trimmed the ends and bangs. Now I can see and don’t look like a sheep dog peeking through long, thick bangs anymore. Actually got progress on the sweater without making a mistake: picked up and knit the collar (again) in blue and did the 3″ in 1×1 rib, and picked up both the armholes and did their ribs too. Now I just have the bottom rib and it’s done. I’m a little confused though…I weighed the yarn after doing the back and it weighed 65g of the original 100. This means the back took me 35g and I can figure out the yardage based on the total yards given. I weighed it again after doing the neck collar and it was 55g, so I assumed the collar took 10g. But then I weighed it after doing the armhole ribs and it weighed 50g, thus taking 5g to make. I don’t understand how 2 5row rounds of 24 sts is half the amount when the collar was 21 rounds of 52 sts. Whatever. I just like the fact that the fruit store next to my work lets me use their precision scale. 😉

Now I’m all caught up and off to dinner at Jack Astor’s with Jackie and Kevin, and maybe seeing Julie and Rich later. And I’ll fill in about the dog sweaters tomorrow. ‘Night!

OH! I forgot to mention the absolute cutest thing! A few weeks ago, all 4 of B’s kids slept over at our house. That would be Alex-8, Nicholas-7, Justin-almost 4, and William-16 months. It was a very fun and exhausting night, and we all had a great time. The reason I bring it up here is that while I was making popcorn for us to have while watching a movie, Nick saw the Knitting Muse doll holding her knitting needles. He turned to me and asked “Do you know how to do this?” I asked, “What, knit?” He says yes. I say yes. He asks “Can you show me how to make a scarf?” I, stunned, ask “You want me to teach you how to knit?” He says yes. I ask “Where have you seen knitting before?” He says he saw his grandmother (dad’s side, not my MIL) do it. So I told him I’d show him tomorrow after breakfast. He made me promise and shake on it that I wouldn’t forget. And wouldn’t you know, when I tucked them all into bed he asked me if I still remembered my promise. The next day things were a little busy after breakfast, but just before lunch time I went downstairs with 2 sets of straight needles, 2 bright colors of acrylic yarn and 10 sts cast on already. He was playing Zelda on GameCube with his older brother. I said “Hey Nick, ready to learn to knit?” and I SWEAR he threw down the controller, started to grin and said “YES!”

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So now I’m on to Saturday, right? Geez, if I don’t finish catching up soon I’ll be recapping every day instead of just posting!

So Saturday we got up barely in time to make it to Valleyfield by 12:00/12:30. Ok, we made it there for 1:00 but everyone knows Yannick runs on YST (Yannick Standard Time), so no one was all that surprised. I brought the gifts for the babies and Justin, all in little gift bags with a tag on the outside that had the care info (wash/dry machine, low heat, delicate cycle). I put the tags on their own little thread so they could be taken off the bag and kept. First I gave Isabelle hers for little 4 week old Maya. She took out the pink/yellow dress with dainty bootie/slippers and right away asked “You didn’t make this, did you?” She seemed to really like it, and said Maya would look great in it. I told her I made it sized for 1 year so she’d be able to wear it during the summer when we all get together again. (The cousins are on Yannick’s dad’s side of the family, and we get together with them on New Year’s Day and Easter every year, plus more often for big celebrations like milestone birthdays, etc…) I then gave the pink and blue onesies and booties to Catherine for her 5 or 6 month old twins Beatrice and Thomas. She couldn’t believe they were handmade AND machine washable. They both seemed surprised that I went to the trouble of making them stuff (uh..by “they” I mean the mommies, not the twins). Then I gave B (Brigitte, Yannick’s sister) the sweater for Justin. He was too busy running around as 4 year olds are wont to do, so she said he’d try it on another time.

I’m running late for work, so more later tonight…or tomorrow….

So where was I? Oh yes, Tuesday and my little crochet hook adventure.

Wednesday I finished the front of the baby girl pink outfit and her booties. All that remained was throwing the suckers in the wash. I did put some clear elastic around the leg openings of the pink onesie once the snaps were sewn on. I waited to do the elastic in the blue one ‘cus I wanted to enlarge it by at least 1″ all around with a good blocking and didn’t want the elastic to get stretched out of shape. I would have kept working Wednesday night but we had a shiva to go to and then when I got home I helped Yannick online job hunting. I know, I know. I’m so nice putting everyone ahead of my own deadlines. 🙂

Thursday I was on to baby #3’s outfit. The yoke front and back of the dress were just simple little shapes of single crochet, all in a very pale pink. I had both of those done by 5pm and spend the rest of the evening working on the skirt part. It was composed of a 7 row pattern repeat with eyelets, so every 7 rows I switched from the pink to a very pale yellow. Yes, for those of you counting that gives me more ends to weave in later. Did I mention there were 21 reps around the skirt? I stayed up until I finished the skirt, leaving the sewing of the skirt to the yokes for Friday when I’d have a desk to work at. By the time I went to bed it was 1am and I realized I’d crocheted at least 12 hrs a day each day since Tuesday. Ok, I didn’t realize it right away. It was the intense pain and burning sensation in my hands and my fingers shrinking into claws that gave it away. I’d taken a Tylenol 1 around 11 but it didn’t help. At 1, right before getting into bed I ran my hands under cold water, yet still when Yannick got home 20 mins later he said my hands were hot to the touch. I’d better be able to knit or I will seriously hurt someone.

Friday I attached the skirt to both yoke parts adding little gathers to the skirt, and then sc’d around the armholes and neckline. I did the sc in yellow so it tied in the yellow of the skirt. Then I wrestled with a decision. (It took 3 tries, but I won) Because Mother A had Babies 1 & 2 and got 2 outfits, the pink and blue onesies and booties, I wanted to make Mother B a slightly more complicated outfit for Baby 3 to compensate for the time spent on Babies 1 & 2. Unfortunately time got in the way and I knew that with only Friday afternoon remaining (I did have New Year’s Eve plans) and a deadline of Saturday morning to wash, dry and wrap all gifts for a Saturday afternoon gifting, there was no way I’d be able to squeeze in over 100 rounds of sc. Had it been double or triple, maybe. But sc is just too small and tight. Plus my hands still hurt. So I compromised and found in my pattern book a cute pair of booties/slippers that were very feminine and dainty. They turned out cute but without shape, but a little bit of the clear elastic turned them into adorable little flowery slippers, perfect for the dress. I finished those at work and came home to finish weaving in all the ends for Justin’s hooded sweater. When I say I went down to the wire…. I finished weaving, sewing on 7 buttons and threw it and the other outfits into the wash for a 6 minute delicate cycle. I used the 6 minutes to change and throw on some makeup, and by the time I was laying out the outfits to dry (and stuffing the booties with plastic to make a cute shape) Julie and Rich arrived to start the night. WHEW!

New Year’s Eve was spent at Hymie’s restaurant with Yannick, Julie, Rich, Debbie and Gregg. Jackie and Kevin would have been there had they not been in Florida resting up after their honeymoon cruise. I was designated driver and got free sodas all night, and the dinner was soooooo good! It became a definate “go back” restaurant. (Yannick and I already have about 3 or 4 places on the “don’t ever go back” list, but I’ll get into those another time). We all picked from the special table d’hote and I had an appetizer of grilled jumbo garlic shrimp, a chicken and broccoli potage (soup), and for the main course a 6oz filet mignon served with grilled veggies, a stuffed potato (yes, I actually asked the waiter what it was “stuffed” with), and 5 extremely jumbo garlic shrimp. It was SOOOOOOOOO GOOD! The table d’hote came with dessert too and we all had some freshly made cheese cake that was absolutely sinful. We stayed at the restaurant long enough that they gave out noisemakers and hats and champagne for the New Year’s toast. The only weird part of the night was that the restaurant is owned by the family of a friend of ours, and he was working that night and served us from time to time. I mean, it was cool having him there, that’s how I got the free sodas. But still, Julie and I found it odd to be served by Jason. We kept wanting to ask him to pull up a chair and hang out. After dinner everyone came over for drinks and then when Debbie and Gregg left, the other 4 of us played a rousing game of spades. Yes, a very risky, thrilling New Year’s was had by all.

….more later…or tomorrow….

Ok long time no post and I’m really sorry but hopefully it can be understood. It was a) the week between Xmas and New Year’s, and b) I was working like mad to finish 4 outfits. Forgive me?

I almost killed my hands, but everything is DONE! No joke, I crocheted for upwards of 12 hours a day between Tuesday and Friday to complete/start/finish the 3 baby outfits, and then I still had to finish sewing in all the ends of the hooded sweater I’d finished seaming on Monday, plus sew on the buttons.

Progress report:

Monday: go to class to have Nicole show me properly how to backstitch the sides of the pockets. She was very impressed with the invisibilty of my side seams (really invisible, even with a bunch of stripes. When I showed Yannick I said “find the seam” and he says “what seam?”). Come home and spend all evening untwisting each end and individually weaving in the 3 resulting plys to reduce bulk.

Tuesday: go to work alone and work on baby boy blue outfit. Couldn’t figure out why I had a size 4 cro hk in the ziplock when the patt called for G and my G hk says (G/4.25mm) on it. Used new hk to finish last rem thing- the ribbing for bootie # 2. Attached said ribbing to bootie base. Held it against old bootie. No way. Undid weaving and seaming and undid bootie to redo with cro hk 4.00mm. Couldn’t figure out why I’d used the wrong size hk. Finished bootie # 2 and started baby girl pink outfit. Started crocheting with G/4.25 hk and think “oh no! When I started these outfits in September and switched outfits, I’d made a complete onesie but it was at least 3″ smaller than stated. Realized late that I’d switched projects but not checked the yarn, and I’d cro’d a dk wt patt w/ fingering. So now I must have forgotten to switch hks!” I plan to block the hell out of the blue outfit to make it fit, but do pink outfit correct size. I manage to finish the entire back of baby pink outfit, and 1/2 of front. Later I check the book and realize I’d used my 4.00 hk ‘cus their conversion table shows that a “G” hk is 4.00 mm. I hate errata.

…more tomorrow…or later…