Sheep Shots: Many Ho-Ho-Holiday Thoughts

Friday, December 22, 2006

Many Ho-Ho-Holiday Thoughts

I am officially off until Tuesday. The "kids" arrive in a couple of hours and this room (where they will sleep) is in a state of total disarray.

For one, I'd like to get to a logical stopping point in the Dulaan so that I can vacuum in here, inflate the air bed, and bake some cookies.

If only Dulaan would cooperate!

The offending row:

It would seem that I am incapable of counting to three.

I have tinked this same row of this very small sweater many times now. The latest tink was caused by my misreading row 2 of the 5 row pattern as row 3. And so, I painfully un-knit back over 162 stitches yet again.

This thing will not defeat me!

And my Knitbabysurprise December "What's in your bag" swap package arrived! It was on the front porch when we brought in the morning paper. (It was not there when I got home from work yesterday. Santa? You out there?

Blogless Betty sent me a wonderful package of cheer:

Here it is in the box. (No, the post office didn't ignore the "Fragile" on the outside. I am responsible.)

Here it all is spread out.

There's a scarf pattern and yarn to make it up, a ball of Patons Classic Wool in a lovely blue colorway, some toys for the kitties (Sparky thanks you, Betty), new stitch markers, two pretty Christmas ornaments, and a cool Christmas tree candle.

Wow!

And here's the bag that Betty mmade in my traditional "hang it on the thermostat" pose.

Ironically, Both Betty and I chose navy blue for the bags we made! (Perhaps, like me, Betty knows that navy hides a lot of potential problems than, say, white. If you get my drift!)

Here's a close-up of the pattern stitch.

Isn't it pretty?

In further stashbusting news (in which I admit to being a bit of a yarn snob):

I checked the spreadsheet last night, you know, just to see.

A while back, I made a mental commitment to use up (or give away) my vast stash of acrylic yarn (mostly committed to charity knitting), and then I counted what was left. Then at the end of January (11 months ago) I found that I had 31 balls of 100% ack and 129 balls of blends with ack as a major component.

Right now, I am down to 5 balls of pure ack. and only a few (less than 50-44, exactly) of blends with ack in them. I am feeling so righteous!

I've "upscaled" my charity knitting. I'm using sock yarn (wool) for baby stuff and superwash wool or heavily wool'd blends for everything else. It's warmer, it's washable, and it certainly feels better to knit.

// posted by Ann @ 12/22/2006 05:59:00 AM

Comments:

Hi Ann,

I tried to post this comment before but it didn't work- in case it shows up multiple times later, please forgive me!
I have a charity knitting group which benefits the North Central Bronx hospital in NY and we could use some acrylic blend yarn if you want to unload some from your stash (but not pure ack, we have that!) I could reimburse postage if you want to send some in nice kid colors (we knit for babies thru preschoolers) by cheap mail! Please let me know by email. Many thanks!

Marcy
mtaitz@optonline.net

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