Personal Deadline Met!

Yeah! I finished “That Pair of Socks”, the finishing of which was the condition I set myself before I would pick back up the Kilt Hose that I set into snooze-mode a few months back.
I wanted to be done before the calendar clicked over, and — hurray! — I did it!

Uh. . . I actually can’t show photos yet. . . it’s sort of a secret. But they’re red. I hope to show them. . . sometime!

Christmas Knitting Done!

I haven’t heard back from the young recipient yet, but I’m eager to show you all how my work turned out. 

Once I finished the knitting — designing the top-decreases was challenging and interesting — I added some embroidery to highlight the resultant  star shape. 

Here’s how the top looked when done. . .  . . .  and when tried on by slightly-older DD. 

I even got it in the post a week before Christmas — hurray!!

Snow!

Christmas Knitting and Cetera

What is your “Christmas knitting”?

For me, it’s this cap for my niece in San Antonio: 

I keep hoping I’ve made it to the start of decreases, but that point still eludes me.   The decision about how deep to make a cap always fills me with uncertainty, eventhough I make more caps than anything else!

The situation:  I want her to turn up the brim now, and then turn it down when she’s bigger; the ribs are stretchy enough to fit a broad range of sizes.  The one I made for DD is 4 3/4″ from cast-on to first-decrease, but she (1 year older than niece) doesn’t turn up the brim, so my current figuring is to make it about 4 1/2″ from where the ribbing changes.

What do you think?

Master Knitter has been my highest non-gift priority, and here’s the current state of the mittens (with kitty for scale)  ;-]  Thumbless and unblocked, but looking pretty good.

Several inches of snow blanket our ground this evening.  The juncos always come out in force when a storm is brewing, and you can see their tracks in this photo of my most recent charity-cap.  The yarn is Paton’s “Pooch”, a bulky wool-blend boucle.  Nice results, but a bit hard to work with, especially if you need to see the individual stitches.  This will be the to-be-turned-up brim.  I plan the rest of the cap to be plain Aran-acrylic stockinette, so I increased 50% in the first round, from 48 to 72 stitches.  Good deal — I’ve learned about a new-to-me yarn, and a local school-child will have a warmer winter!