Blerg!*

SO MUCH SNOW!!! It has been snowing nonstop all damn day, and I'm starting to feel like one of the Little House on the Prairie girls all cooped up in my house with a 4 yr old who desperately needs a lot of physical activity. So we've been wrestling and running circles around the house all day. Here's a shot of our patio table; it's hard to tell b/c I took it 10 minutes ago in the dark, but there's almost a foot of snow on that thing.

In other winter related wonder, we finally bought a Christmas tree. We do enjoy the comforts of a good old-fashioned secular Christmas, complete with pine tree goodness and presents aplenty :) Perrin was delighted to be the one to put the star on top.

In knitting related awesomeness, I whipped up this little camera case for our new camera. It's a purple Nikon Coolpix, and it's so darling and fits right in my pocket. Who couldn't love that?

The future of my needles? I've got 2 sweaters waiting on yarn. First is the garter yoke pullover from Knit.1 magazine created by one of my favorite bloggers, Knitting School Dropout. I'm just anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in a gorgeous deep green for this one.

And I'm super stoked to get started on Coraline from the darling Ysolda. I've admired her patterns for years (and crushing on her cuteness a little) but this is the first one I've purchased.


I'm a little uncertain what yarn I wanna use for this. I have some Knitpicks Shine Sport in a light blue, but I'm meh about it for this sweater. I was thinking of using some light grey Cascade 220 that I have laying around, but I don't know if I have enough. We'll see.

Next post will be all about my new obsession with shoes.

*In reference to my favorite catchphrase of Tina Fey's in 30 Rock. I discovered this fabulousness last week and have since watched all 3 seasons whilst knitting some armwarmers for John's aunt and eating homemade chocolate biscotti from mine. It's been a rather slow week.

Grace Lace Beret

Slouchy berets are quickly becoming a staple in my wardrobe due mostly to super windy Chicago winters and hair that isn't quite long enough to put back out of my face. I wear my green Le Slouche pretty much daily to take Perrin to school and for those days when I don't feel like dealing with hair at all. So I was pleased as punch (I love that phrase even though I don't understand it) to find this adorable lace beret pattern at http://www.loopknits.com/2008/10/13/grace-lace-beret-class/. The pattern was easy to follow, quick, and too cute for words.
I used Caron Simply Soft b/c I'm on a sort of sabbatical from wool right now. Yeah, it's super warm but every brand seems to be itching me like madness, so there may be a return of my wool allergy from childhood. It blows muchly, but I'm finding a lot of acrylics and cottons that I like just as much and are cheaper anyway.
So here it is in all its unblocked glory. Eventually I'll figure out how to easily block a beret since pinning it out on my head would be rather unwise.



Next up, possibly legwarmers to wear over my jeans and boots for sledding since snowsuits are outrageously expensive.

Odds and Ends

I've been a bit of a knitting fool lately. John's company is having a holiday party next weekend, and I bought this adorable little black dress. However, I have tons of tats, and it might be a little chilly, I designed this adorable shrug with a lacy cuff. I used some cheapo Red Heart soft, which I've used before and dig. This will not only keep me toasty, but it'll also cover up a couple of tattoos should there be some stuffies there. Normally, I'd just say "fuck 'em" and show them off, but this is a new job for John, and I can spend one evening not stickin' it to the man :)

Next up, we've got some mittens I knitted up in 2 days out of some hand dyed wool I bought over the interwebz over a year ago. It's a little itchy, but it's so gorgeous I can endure. I used a pattern from kpixie, which is very well written and easy.

And the last little bit are gloves I'm knitting for my best friend to give her boyfriend for Christmas. They're kinda big, so I'm going to rip back the pinky and thumb, as per the recommendations from my hubby hand model. I'm using the leftover RH from the shrug, and they're super soft. It's my first time knitting gloves, so the fingers are a little tricky, but I'm enjoying it. I think I'll make some for JOhn for Christmas if he's a very good boy.

So that's all for now. Up next, a hat for my best friend's brother and the beginning of a little cardigan I'm designing pretty much as I go.