Monday, Monday

First the knitting. With all of the snow and cold, hat/scarf/mitten knitting seemed like the right thing to do. I have been wanting to try out this pattern since it came in. The mittens are being modeled by Knitting Daughter. Done with a double strand of Claudia Hand Painted Sport in Chocolate Cherry (1 1/2 skeins, knit as directed), these are by far the most comfortable mittens I have ever worn. They are wonderfully fitted – no baggy, boxy shape. I love these so much that I’m in the middle of another pair that I’m giving as a Christmas gift. The double strand makes these especially warm and impervious to the bad weather (but since it’s a sport weight, not so thick that you can’t move your hands.) I quickly decided that this will forever be my favorite basic mitten pattern.

I also knit up this child’s hat pattern (by the same pattern designer, so I know that the mittens included in that pattern will be as fitted and comfortable as the lady’s size in the ones above. And I know that the lady’s hat in the pattern above will be just as wonderful as the kid’s hat in this pattern.) Since I don’t have a little one around to model the kid’s hat, I made Casey do the honors. (Oh, can you see how excited she was to be wearing a hat and scarf for me? Just thrilled.) I knit this with two strands of Claudia Hand Painted Fingering Weight in Carousel. I love the way the colors play together! I used two skeins, and had enough left over for this short scarf. This hat knits up so quickly, so if you have little ones in your life, it’d be a fun, quick gift. But put a toy in there, too. At that age, they don’t want hats and mittens to be “THE” gift from you, no matter how cute they look in your hand-knitted items.

On Saturday, Knitting Daughter and I taught Friend Susan and her Knitting Daughter how to knit! They are starting with scarves. Susan picked a skein of Opal (she liked the self-striping pattern for her scarf) and Carly picked Schaefer Lola in Raspberry Chill. They did great and I predict that we just added two more knitters to Knitting Universe. Both of them want to learn to knit socks next – which is a very good thing.

Also on the knitting front, our latest Sweet Georgia order has arrived! I just can’t seem to get enough of this stuff. I love the colors and I love the yarn base that she uses. We have 6 new colors of Speed Demon (in the sport weight) and 14 new colors of the Superwash Sock (in the fingering weight). Some of you quickly discovered it on the website Saturday night and have packages winging their way to you today!

For your knitting corner/nook/room – don’t we all need one of these? Don’t forget to be sending in your photos of “Sock in Trees and Socks on Rocks”, as well as your favorite knitting corner or knitting room or knitting storage system ideas for the photo galleries we are working on this month. I love what you have sent in so far. 🙂

On the decorating front – yes, I managed to get decorations up and threw the pumpkins away off the front porch. That’s snow covering the top of them. That ought to tell you right there that I was about a month late in throwing them away. This is what my kitchen window now looks like. I pick up a few more of these little people every year. I’m hoping that Zoe will not discover how fun they are to knock down. (Not that she’s supposed to ever be up on the kitchen counters to discover them anyway.) You can see just a peek of Melvin the Muffin Man on the right side. More on him – and my other favorite elves – later.

This Snowman Collection started on one shelf in the kitchen window. You can see that I outgrew that, and have almost outgrown this spot as well. (I refuse to outgrow this. There is simply nowhere else to go with them.) I leave the snowmen up until around Valentine’s Day, so even though it takes a long time to put up, at least it stays there for a bit. I’ll have to take some closeups of some of my favorites to share in future blogs this month. Meanwhile, I leave you with this important sign. It illustrates just one of the many hazards of having so many snowmen around the house.

Sheri sotellmeaboutyourholidaycollections!