The Final Reveal

This morning I’m sitting on my sofa with my laptop on my lap (of all places).  I find I have developed a real love/hate relationship with my iPad so no typing on it today.  Yes, you read the first sentence right.  I have a laptop which implies mobility, yes?  So the too-high desk should have never been an issue, right?  Well, it wouldn’t be except since my laptop is gettin’ kinda old (at least 75 in technology years), the battery only lasts around 10 minutes on a good day so wherever my laptop goes, my power cord has to go as well.  In order to reach my power cord, I have to crawl on the floor under the too-high desk to find my power cord and disentangle it from the hazardous mass of other cords lying around with the leafy dust bunnies (how DO the leaves get behind the desk??).  I don’t like crawling on the floor for anything unless it’s for a better look at the yarn on the bottom shelf at my LYS, but since I’m not speaking to my iPad at the moment, I decided I was desperate enough to go for a little crawl today.  Since I’m sure I know how appreciative you are right now of my rambling on for a paragraph about this, I shall offer my apologies and move on.

Last night was the final reveal of the last four of my Christmas knitting projects!  Yay!  Each gift seemed to be received with much appreciation, which is always a relief when you’ve spent so much time on a hand knit item.  In fact, I was overjoyed this morning to get a text from one of my friends telling me she was wearing her sweater to work today and really loves it.  Double yay!  So, here’s the lowdown:

DISCLAIMER:  I am NOT a photographer.  I repeat, I am NOT a photographer as is evidenced in the photos below.  The photography class I wanted to take is only offered on a day of the week when I can’t go.  I am to be pitied rather than ridiculed…

Verna really is an adorable person!

This sweater is Vodka Lemonade by Thea Colman.  I had a lot of fun with this sweater except for running out of yarn (see the post about my breakdown here).  Thankfully, Lady L. came to the rescue with some extra skeins of Sublime Extra Fine Merino Wool DK in colorway #7, which you’ve probably figured out by now that I like working with a LOT.  I love this design and it was perfect for my friend, Verna.  I’ve cut Verna’s head off of the photo, not because she’s scary looking (she’s actually a lovely lady), but because she has her eyes closed in this shot (see above disclaimer) and she’d probably not appreciate my posting it.  This was actually the fourth sweater I completed for Christmas.

Keeping Jan toasty!

The next sweater is the second Iced sweater by Carol Feller I’ve done.  I plan on doing a third for me, myself, and I.  Love this pattern and how quickly it knits up.  Jan is often cold, like me, and so this sweater is awesomely warm.  It looks a little weird in the photo (did I mention the disclaimer?), but that’s because not only can I not work the camera very well, but I am also lousy at arranging my subject.  Sigh…  The yarn I used is KnitPicks Wool of the Andes Bulky (same as Iced #1) in colorway #6414, which is a really nice yarn to work with, although I’ll be using a different yarn from my stash for the one I make for myself. 

You can barely see the lace columns

The third sweater is the one I just completed the night before our belated Christmas gathering.  It is another pattern by Thea Colman, Nantucket Red.  I used the Sublime EFMW DK again in colorway #19.  It actually looks really good on Connie and you can see that even though my picture is what it is.  Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy knitting this pattern as much as the other Colman pattern.  Everything was golden, even the seaming, until I got to the neck shaping.  It was just a little weird and left me with some spaces to pull together, plus the instructions for the neckline didn’t make any sense to me, although that might be due to my having stayed up way too late several nights in a row to finish this.  Anyhoo, it came out okay.  I was a little disappointed with the  lace columns, as they didn’t end up as defined as I’d have liked them to be but I think that’s because of the rush to get this done.  I didn’t have time for a proper wet-block and the steam just didn’t cut it.

Finally finished!

And last but not least is the “never-ending Christmas blanket” I knit for my friend Brian (he’s not the sweater type).  I think he’d probably be mortified if I put his picture up on a knitting blog, so I'll use a picture of the blanket sans Brian.  Although this was a royal pain in my backside that took forever, it came out beautifully.  Brian has children, so I used an acrylic - Caron’s Simply Soft in Off White and Autumn Red.  The design (if you can actually say it was a design) was my own.  Too bad I love the look of seed stitch so much or this thing might have been finished ages ago.  I started this a week before Thanksgiving and didn’t finish it until January 5^th.  I told Brian that it is doubly special because it is the first and last blanket I’ll ever knit. 

So there you have it.  All my Christmas knitting is finally done until I start for next Christmas, which may be next week if I want to avoid the stress I had knitting 7 sweaters and a blanket in such a short time-period.  I didn’t start any of it until September 7^th.  I chalk it up to the complete naiveté of a rookie knitter.  Meh…knit, live, and learn. 

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