The Scottish Lamb

And the winner is...

Okay... I don't know who nominated me for this, but THANKS!!  Very cool.  Hopefully I can keep my witts about me and not get a big head.  ;-)

I wish I could say Christmas was merry around here.  It wasn't.  We were visited by a very unwelcome guest.  The flu.  I started with it the day before Christmas Eve.  I missed Daniel and Joe at mass on Christmas Eve but Dan videotaped it for me.  Joe was so cute as Joseph.  I think I can freeze frame a picture out of the video and will try that when I get to it.

Dan got a phone call at 4am Christmas morning and had to go.  We knew he only had about an hour before the preliminary stuff was done so we got the boys up to open gifts so he wouldn't miss it.  Both had a fever. Swell.  Dan left at 5:00 and we didn't see him till 3:30 in the afternoon.  The boys felt so bad that we went back to bed at 6:30 for a couple of hours.  When five and ten year old boys will leave their brand new toys to go back to bed, you know they don't feel well.  We'd noticed Daniel's eyes were red the night before and the light dawned Christmas afternoon that it might be pink eye.  My friend and neighbor, Tari (the one I made the bucket hat for), had it last week so I called her.  She confirmed it.  Luckily she had the medication or we would have had to drive all the way up to Wurzburg (about an hour).  By the end of the day Joe was also showing signs of red eyes.  Swell again.  A week later and my throat is still bothering me and I woke up with swollen eyes yesterday.  Argh.  I have to admit it's easier dealing with this with the boys out of school.

The highlight of Christmas day was a phone call from Jeremy.  I asked him how he was doing and he said, "I'm okay.  I can't complain."  He's such a great kid.

I got some great gifts and I'll share those as I catch up.  I have a neglected house that needs to be pulled back together first and completely santized with Lysol.

  I did manage to get a photo of a gift I received from Jackie in Boston.  Nummy homemade cookies, a ball of Rowan Big Wool and a bag from my favorite American city!  Thank you Jackie!  You rawk.

I managed to finish the beaded bag a couple of hours before giving it to my friend, LeeAnn, on Christmas evening.  I completely forgot to get a picture, but I will in the next couple of days.  It came out really cute and she loved it.  There's nothing better than giving someone a knitted gift and they really appreciate it. 

Thank You

A personal post today.  I am moved by the number of emails I've received asking if my son is okay.  Thank you for your support and concern.  The attack in Mosul definitely had our home in a panic until CNN showed that it didn't happen on FOB Sykes where Jeremy is.  My heart goes out to the families.  I now know what it's like to see it on the news and not know.  It's the not knowing that tears you up inside.  I haven't heard from him yet, but it was his unit and I'm sure communications are closed down until the families are notified so they don't find out through the grapevine.

As a vet I never would have guessed that I'd be a panicker.  I worried about my husband when he went to Bosnia.  I worried when he went to the Pentagon on 9/11 and I worried about him when he went to Afghanistan.   But I didn't panic like I have with Jeremy in Iraq. Every hair on my head is going to be grey by the time he leaves there.  I guess with Dan, I know he's a seasoned veteran and he can take care of himself.  In my head I know Jeremy is a grown man and can take care of himself, in my heart he'll always be my little boy and I'll worry.

On a happier note, several families here in our community are welcoming loved ones home today.  Just in time for the Holidays.   The majority of the troops from our community will be home in February, but they start trickling in today.  It's nice to know it's almost over for most of my friends and neighbors.  Sad to know it's just starting for others.  Two of Dan's guys leave in February for Afghanistan.

Please keep our troops and their families in your hearts and prayers.

Itty Bitty Beads

Photos in a minute.  First... remember my friend, Lynne, who was the inspiration for these booties?  She started a blog!  You have to go check out her gorgeous socks. She has a great eye for color.  Congrats on your bouncing baby blog, Lynne!

I promised progress photos of the beaded change purse.  The kit came with a hank of size 11 beads, pearl cotton and the clasp:

First order of business is getting the beads from the hank on to the pearl cotton.  This is done by gently pulling one end of a strand of beads out of the hank.  Start tying a knot in the thread at the end of the strand but don't pull it yet.  Slide the end of the pearl cotton through it until there are about 5" past the knot.  Thank God for digital cameras because I'm obviously horrible at explaining things like this (click on the photo for a clearer view):

Then you pull the knot closed and start CAREFULLY sliding the beads from the thread to the pearl cotton:

After sliding the beads on to the pearl cotton I slide them little by little down the length of it till I have a strand with no beads so I can start knitting.  I wind the beads around a paper towel tube (you can see this in the last photo) to help keep them from getting tangled.  Every now and then I have to slide them all down again to have a blank piece of cotton to knit with. 

Knitting the beads in is the easy part.  Actually being able to **see** the beads is the hard part.  All you do is slide the correct number of beads (per the pattern) in between two stitches.  From here I would just knit the next stitch. 

Here's how far I was last night about an hour into pulling the kit out of the bag:

Here's how far I got last night before I went to bed:

I'll post again when I have it finished.

I saw Mommy Kissin' Santa Claus...

Last week we had the Battalion Christmas party in Bamberg.  All the way up there we explained to the boys (again) about how it was "Santa's helper" that would be at the party.  After all, Santa can't do it all alone.  About ten minutes before we arrived, Dan's cell rang.  Seems Santa's helper's GPS was on the fritz and he got lost so Dan was going to have to help him out and put on the suit.  Now we had to backtrack and change our story so the boys wouldn't blow it for all the other kids there when they realized Santa's helper was their Dad.    Whew!  It's a good thing Santa had dropped all the gifts off the night before!  That Santa.... always thinking.  In our house if you don't believe in Santa, you don't get presents from him and we all know he gives the best gifts.  That's how we keep ten-year-old-fact-based Daniel from blowing it for five-year-old-happy-go-lucky Joseph.  Still, when Daniel went up for his gift and "Santa's Helper" told him to sit on his lap, Daniel replied, "C'mon Dad!"

How cute is this kid?  That's the felted Bucket Hat that covered Joe's face the other day.  The cute kid is Hollie.  I made the hat for her Mom, Tari.  Hollie was kind enough to let me take a picture outside the chapel after mass this morning.  Her Dad's in Iraq but will be home in a couple of months.  Thanks Holls!

I liked the hat so much I cast on another in dark grey (Elann's HW, of course) for me.  I made the portion between the brim and the top on mine a little longer.  I LOVE the way the HW felted though. 

My next project is this.  Two of them actually.   I'll post progress photos.  Last time I made one of these it only took me a day.... we'll see.

Photo Finish

*added 12/21 - found an error in row 9 of pattern at bottom of post.  It starts with K3, sm.  It's corrected now.

Finished the Mobius for my Aunt.  I used three skeins of black Elann's Peruvian Collection Alpaca (it's sold out now, but rumor has it there'll be more soon) knit in garter with the Cat's Paw lace design on US size 8 needles.  This was the easiest lace pattern I could think of after having to frog back way too many times.  Ever try to see black fuzzy stitches in the evening? Not an easy task, but the rewards will be great when this is snuggled around my Aunt's neck.   So soft and cuddly.  Pattern is at the end of today's post.

Need a really quick knit?  I cast on the ChicKnits Felted Bucket Hat last night for a friend who's been bugging me for a hat.  I finished the last couple of rounds this morning while the boys ate breakfast.  Don't have the pattern?  Even that's quick.  You can order it online here.  I did mine in my favorite worsted weight, Elann's Highland Wool (Deep Blue Sea).  Which, oddly enough, is the wool of choice for ChicKnits Ribby.  Seriously considering this one for my next HW order.  I didn't even use two whole skeins for the hat

  Joseph thought it was hilarious that the hat was so big and is concerned I made a huge mistake.  "Miss Tari's head isn't that big!"  Won't he be surprised when it comes out of the washer.  I'll post a photo when I get it felted.  You can be sure Joe will want to be in that photo also.

Here’s my pattern for the mobius:

Abbrev: pm = place marker  sm= slip marker

Use your favorite temporary cast on and cast on 43 sts. (3 sts on each side will be kept in plain garter for the border)

Row 1 and 5: K3, pm, K1 (K5, K2tog, yo, K1, yo, K2tog), repeat to last 9 sts., K6, pm, K3

All even rows:  K across

Row 3: K3, sm, K2 (K3, K2tog, yo, K3, yo, K2tog) repeat to 5 sts before m, K5, sm, K3

Row 7 and 11: K3, sm, K1 (K2tog, yo, K1, yo, K2tog, K5), repeat to 6 sts before m, K2tog, yo, K1, yo, K2tog, K1, sm, K3

Row 9: K3, sm,(K2tog, yo, K3, yo, K2tog, K3) repeat to 7 sts before m, K2tog, yo, K3, yo, K2tog, sm, K3

Knit till you don’t have enough yarn to finish a full repeat.  Put provisional cast on onto another circ needle.  Here’s the only tricky part.  Put a half twist into your strip and kitchener the two ends together.  Weave in ends, block and there ya go.

Peace and Joy

It's so odd.  I'd just been "chatting" (as well as you can via the internet) with Vicki at Knitorious about our love of Christmas ornaments and how every year it's like saying hello to an old friend when they come out of the box to be put on the tree.

I have two new friends this year.  Peace and Joy.  As usual, the camera does not do justice. These precious gifts will be cherished by my family for years to come.  They were a gift from Jamie, a fellow Elanner.  I'd just organized a swap so that a bunch of us could have a color card for my favorite yarn, Elann's Highland Wool.  This amazing gift was her thank you.  I explained to my son, Daniel, about the work that went into them and showed him a picture of an inkle loom on the web so that he could appreciate the value of these wonderful pieces of handwork.  He was amazed.  Thank you, Jamie, from the bottom of my heart.

Another piece of art made it's way into our home today.  A certain kindergartner named Joseph built his first Gingerbread house all alone today in school.  I wrung my hands as he pounced off the bus wondering how close to the door he was going to get before it crashed to the ground.

Oh ye of little faith.  It made it to the door unscathed.  He wanted to eat it as soon as his dad got home.  As always, when we have something planned, Dan gets a duty call (he's a Criminal Investigations Special Agent for the Army).  So we took a picture and emailed it to Dan at the office because Joe could not wait any longer.

Fiber Fill

I can't believe it's been five days since I posted last.  When I started this I wanted to post at least every other day.  Best laid plans...  Life is just so busy now that I'm not getting as much knitting time in as usual.  And the knitting I am doing is a Mobius scarf for my Aunt Ruthann.  It's in black alpaca from Elann.  I'm putting a simple Cat's Paw pattern in it with garter stitch borders.  I had more intricate lace patterns in mind but in our living room in the evening there's not a lot of light and I had to restart about ten times because I just couldn't see the stitches.  You can imagine how well black alpaca will photograph. Not.  It is so dark and grey here in Germany that I'm having a really hard time getting good photos as it is.  I'll try the scarf once it's finished but no promises.  I'll post a pattern then also.

My friend, Michelle, brought this back for me from the States:

Knitting Pattern A Day Calendar - It has an easy knitting pattern for each day of the year!  Definitely enough to keep you busy and great way to use up those small bits of yarn as most of the projects are small ones.  Very cool.

Thought I'd switch gears and share some of my dyeing and spinning projects.  I LOVE dyeing.  It's like a little science experiement every time.   I'm not one to measure.  Part of the fun is putting in a little of this and a little of that and seeing what you get.  Most of the time I get beautiful results like with these blues and browns.  It reminds me of a carribean beach.  Click it and you can see a close-up but the color still isn't quite right.  Trust me when I say it's prettier in person.  A little deeper.  The skein on the left is a softly spun singles.  It's interesting to see how much the yarn changes when I spun a finer single and plied it.  I love how soft and relaxing the colors are.  I have about two pounds of this to spin up.  I just have to decide on singles or plied....

This is what you call a screw up creative dyeing.  I had some dark blue and yellow left over.  The light colored ball came from the top of the crock pot, the medium from the middle and yea... you got it... the dark from the bottom where all the color pooled together.  I didn't have near enough liquid in this one.  The funny thing is that even though the roving is hideously ugly, I spun a little up anyway.... love the dark yarn that I got from it.  Beautiful deep greens and blues.  The lighter colored skein is one ply of each of the medium and light colored rovings.  Not crazy about it but it's not my colors.  I'm sure someone out there likes it. 

This next week is going to be a busy one.  I'm so looking forward to the boys being home from school for two weeks.  We need some down time.  I was kind of hoping that maybe, just maybe, my son Jeremy would get his two-week R&R from Iraq during the holidays but he may not get it at all.  It would have been awesome to have him home.

Baby it's cold outside....

Dan, my friend, Mariana and I all met in the Marktplatz today for lunch at the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market).  Bratwurst and Glühwein.  Yum.  The thing is, it's freezing out there and you eat outside standing at a small table or where ever you can find room.  The Glühwein works it's magic quickly and warms you up from the inside.   It's delicious hot mulled red wine served in little mugs that you can keep or take back for your deposit.   We have a large collection that we've gathered over the years from the various Christkindle and Weinachts Markets.  Next week we're headed to the big one in Nürnberg so I'll post pictures from that trip.

Here's my always happy hubby.  The sweater is another knit from wool we picked up on that trip to Shetland.  We saw one like it and I said, "Pfft!  I can make that!"  Ya.  Smart move, Sister.  Two years later he got the sweater.  I used Alice Starmore "Charts For Color Knitting" (no, I don't want to sell it) and we chose the yarns while in Jamieson and Smith's in Lerwick.  When I got to the first band of the maroon background I hated it.  It sat in my knitting basket for about a year and a half and finally I picked it up one day and decided to finish it.  Once I got the second band of the maroon in it pulled it together nicely. It's Dan's favorite sweater (at least he says it is - it may be because of the sweat that went into knitting it) and he wears it often.  I have to say, he's freezing in this photo and yelling at me through clenched teeth to hurry up and snap the photo since I made him take his coat off for the picture.

If you could see clearly what is in the window behind me, you'd take no notice of the sweater. This is the Hues in Horizontal from Knitter's #60.  It's Lopi Lite and one of my favorite sweaters.  Behind me is the  Hussel chocolate.  I had to pop in there for a little suprise for a certain girl in South Boston.  These quaint little shops are one of the things we missed most when we were back in the States for three years.

Back to Christmas knitting....

Wooly Memories

For someone who knits as much as I do, I sure don't wear my sweaters very often.  I was going through my drawers yesterday looking at some of my old labors of love.  Since I didn't get much knitting done this weekend to share, I thought I'd share my blasts from the past.

My all time favorite garment is this one from Ann Feitelson's "The Art of Fair Isle Knitting". 

It's the Fridarey vest on page 120.  I bought the wool for it and the Scalloway yoke sweater while we were in Lerwick, Shetland in 1997.  Here's the yoke of the Scalloway:

You can click on the yoke to see the full size version.

The nice thing about these is that they are the perfect souvenir of that trip and I'm reminded instantly of how much we loved Shetland.  Dan had just come home from eight months in Bosnia and we needed family time alone.  Couldn't have picked a better place.  It's the perfect get-away.  Enough to keep you from getting bored, but all relaxing and you are surrounded by natural beauty.  We spent a few days in Edinburgh, then a week in Shetland and then back to Edinburgh for a few days for the Military Tattoo.

I still have about five sweaters worth of Shetland wool kitted up.  It's my favorite style of knitting.  That trip is the best one I've ever taken in my life.  We went to the mill where they used to spin the Alice Starmore yarns, visited bird sanctuaries, watched the Shetland women knit lace and fair isle at the speed of lightening and watched them spin cobweb weight yarn like it was second nature. 

We stayed in the Sumburgh Hotel at the southern tip of the island.  When we first arrived and got to the top of the stairs I almost broke down in tears.  On our door was a brass plate that said, "Fair Isle Room"  Is that fate or what?  It's called that because you can see Fair Isle (25 miles away) from the window when it's clear out.  We couldn't go to Fair Isle because we didn't time our trip right with the mail boat that takes you there and back.  If you look at the photo of the hotel in the link, we were in the room with the big picture window upstairs.  It was gorgeous. The house used to be a family home of Robert the Bruce.  The sea is just in front of the house and there's a croft that you can walk to just up the road.   We happened upon a man shearing one of his sheep.  Heaven I'm telling you.  Sheer heaven (no pun intended).

Here are some photos of that trip:

Dan and I look a little shell shocked as we were pulling into Lerwick Harbor because it was about 5am.  lol.  As you can see, Daniel slept just fine in the tiny berth on our P&O Ferry overnight journey from Aberdeen.  We couldn't get over how it never really got dark at night.  It looked like dusk at about 2 am.  It was stunning with all the fog.

Here's Daniel and I at the croft by the Sumburgh.  You can't see it very well, but the sweater Daniel has on was from my second project all from my hand spun. It's done in 1x1 rib with a cable going up the sleeves.  The yoke sweater I'm wearing was my own design based on Meg Swansen's "Cardigan Details" video and EZ's percentage system for yoke sweaters.   I call it my one-week sweater.  I knit it in a week while Dan was in Bosnia.  Lots of knitting till the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep.

This photo of Daniel and I feeding a lamb is probably my favorite from the whole trip.  It was taken at a working croft  you can visit on the west side of the island. It's run by Mary and Tommy Isbister.  The nicest people. We had so much fun there we went twice.  They had every kind of farm animal around.  They invited us back for tea (hence the 2ND visit) and they gave a small toy to Daniel that is tucked away in his keepsakes box.

I think I'm going to go watch the videos now so I can fully reminisce.

Pooch DNA

Unless you count the felted ball, this is not a fibery post, but it's funny. 

We rescued Bailey at the pound in Clarksville, TN in June 2000 less than 24 hours after we moved to town.  Her time was up the next day and we just couldn't leave her.  We've always wondered what breeds are mixed up in there but have pretty much settled on Cocker Spaniel and Schnauzer.  She's between groomings in this photo.  Made the mistake of taking her to a German groomer that didn't speak any english and came home with a very bald dog.  This is a few months after that little incident.  Her hair is very wavy when we let it grow in and she looks like a ragamuffin.  Groomed she looks like a blonde schnauzer with unclipped ears.  Either way, she's adorable and a very sweet girl.  She puts up with an awful lot from a certain five-year old and always comes back for more with her tail wagging.

Anyway...  While surfing the web this morning, I came across a website for a breed mix of Labradores and Poodles - Labradoodles.  I sent the site to Dan at work so he could check it out and this is what my Texas A&M educated husband writes back, "So she's a Schnocker or a Cocknauzer...."  Okay.  I can just imagine the looks we'd get when someone asks our five or ten-year old what kind of dog we have.  I think we'll stick to mutt for now.

On a positive note, I found an awesome groomer down in the marktplatz where I can drop her off, go have coffee and cake at the cafe and go back to pick her up and she's perfect every time.