Noro Mitts completed

I finished the Noro mitts last night, yah! They came out very nice, warm, comfortable and very pretty. As I only had 1 skein I knew they would be mismatched for color, but that's OK as now I will easily know which is right or left and probably will only wear around house when using the computer.

Got to use my new animal mug (Christmas gift) for the first time this morning, it's a cute and yet elegant penguin. I just love these type of mugs, so far I've collected a tiger and zebra as well.

Noro Mitts

12/20/08 I started this hopefully simple project for the long drive to and from LA using this online pattern for fingerless mittens using a single skein of Noro yarn.

12/21/08 3rd times the charm for the cast on, silly me, I forgot that my circulars had to be SHORTER the the circumference of the knitted object. After an emergency run to Joanne’s for DPN’s I am on my way.
12/22/08 I guess 3rd time isn’t the charm as I have knitted up about 10 rows, tried it on and realized that the wrist is really quite a bit too large for me. So, with a gauge of 4st/in and a wrist of just over 5.5in circumference I am going to cast on 27 stitches instead of the 32 called for in the pattern.

12/25/08 finished most of the left hand mitt on the 7 hour drive to LA, whew! I’m not quite sure how to pick up and knit for the thumb stitches, so I think I will save this and ask my knitting mentor later and just start on the right mitt for the long drive home. So far, I am loving the color and feel. Now that they have seen some of my FO’s my sister-inlaw and mom-inlaw want some knitted stuff too!

garter stitch edge, very easy and I think it looks nice too.

I knit the right hand mitt on the way home and finished that one to the same point. Now, I only need to finish the thumbs.

Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008 at Mom & Dad's place. A good time was had by all.

Dad was very happy with his new digital camera and iPod, if perhaps a little overwhelmed by all the new electronic gear he now has to learn to use. Mom was nearly in tears laughing at all the funny videos on her new digital photo/video picture frame.

Mom & Dad (mostly Mom) prepared a wonderful turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

We completed two 500 piece puzzles ( a new Christmas record) and Debbie was in full kindergarten teacher mode as she shows off our handiwork in this little home video. And as you can see by the banner behind her, she is now a Master of Education, congrats Debbie!!

Tex was a bad dog, this was his first time alone (for days) in his new home and he took out his worry and frustration on our old couch! Oh well, it was time for a new one anyway and if you look closely you can see that this couch is actually made of cardboard!

a new project

the cold weather and finding a one skein project to use with the pretty Noro silk yarn I got in a trade through the Ravelry site prompted me to start a new project.

I think this will be a good project to do on the long drive to and from LA for Christmas with the family. The project is a pair of fingerless mitts. I tried a new cast on technique (for me) as well, the Knitted Cast On. I like it because this technique doesn't require me to figure out how much yarn I will need for the entire cast on prior to starting, with this technique you just use the yarn as you go. Another first for me is going to be using double pointed needles (dpn), so I am rather excited to get started.

using the 5 dpn's is a little fiddly but not too bad and it's a technique I need to master to ever do a pair of socks (plus it looks quite impressive to non-knitters : ), so here goes.

baby, it's cold outside

Winters has been really trying to live up to it's name this last week with the temperature dropping into the 20's at night and hovering in the 40's during the day. We actually got a few snowflakes on Tuesday. This prompted me to bring in the birdies, which are pretty hardy, but not really biologically able to withstand freezing temperatures as they are both Australian native species (budgerigars and zebra finches). The picture below is actually from a few years ago when we had a pair of Gouldians as well (the 2 yellow/purple/black), sadly gone now.So, on Wednesday I spent a good hour in the dark snatching all 12 of the current aviary residents out of mid air and stuffing them into our much smaller indoor flight cages.
I forgot what a mess these guys can make. With 10 little finches in the bottom cage dancing in the food dish and flapping their wings we had quite a lot of seeds and feathers surrounding the cage and on the floor in no time. Although the dogs valiantly tried to keep it clean by:

1. trying to eat the birds directly to prevent the problem (I highly discouraged this!) and
   
2. eating lots of feathers and seeds from the floor.
   
   
   

   although they gave it their best shot the dogs just couldn't keep up with the generation of mess! Myself not wanting to sweep every day (or possibly more than once daily) had to come up with some kind of seed catcher. Thus, the "bird skirt" was born.

The bird skirt creation process:

Step 1. Tex carefully inspected an old ripped sheet to see if it was fit for use.

Step 2: Although Tex really wanted to help, I insisted that he let me do the cutting of a 14" width of the bottom (elastic portion of the fitted sheet) to a length of 100" (and a shout out to my favorite helper, Craig) and then sew another piece of elastic to the cut edge.

Step 3: apply the newly fashioned "bird skirt" to the indoor cage and Voila, no more mess!

When it rains, it leaks

Craig has been keeping quite busy this holiday vacation testing the limits of his handyman skills. He has completed drywalling & painting 2 of the 3 inside garage walls (the 4th wall is the door for those of you keeping count). It is definitely brighter with the super white walls than before with exposed brown wood studs and black tar paper. In addition to the garage work, he repaired our sink.

The issue started with a simple dripping faucet and as usual in the Dauch household, blossomed into a full bloom 3 day faucet repair with multiple trips to the hardware store for mysterious, inadequately identified faucet "guts". No one tells you that you have to remove the lock ring and flip the stem of the ceramic disk to make the hot water handle open the valve in the opposite direction as the cold handle. Luckily we put both our college educated heads together and used our little monkey hands to put it together and take it apart like 5 times before we figured it out!

Bamboo Tank Top

whoo hoo, the bamboo tank top I started in April while in Hawaii is finally done. Long after summer, and of course it is in the 40's today so modeling it for the photo was an exercise in self discipline (we are trying to keep down the electrical bill). The top is actually a bit shorter than I anticipated, maybe because I've gained at least 10 pounds since I started and am perhaps a bit more "voluptuous", hmmm.

Things I wish came out better:

• the neck edge is rough and uneven
• not sure I did the seams correctly, they will hold, but came out as a double row of "sticking" out stitches on the side and the shoulder seams are thick causing it to stick up a little too much.

Things I like about it:

• the V-neck is a reasonable length (not too revealing)
• I kept the pattern really well (only a couple of minor mistakes, no one but me will ever notice)
• the color and feel of the yarn!
• the drape of the garment

Finished Pegboard

The tools of the trade : ) I used old file folders to make very stiff "interfacing" for the border fabric. Originally I was going to glue the fabric to the interfacing, the glue it to the board, but that began to seem quite messy and I thought it might lead to unfixable mistakes, so I went a different way.

I carefully folded and ironed the fabric to wrap around the interfacing,

then sewed it along the edge with metallic gold thread. Then I glued the strips onto the pegboard to form an inner, decorative border to tie it in with the rest of the deco.

I put up all kinds of fun hooks, mounted everything I could find that had holes to hang and even managed to mount my cute little Bernina accessory holder box. I also cut up a used, giant ibuprofen bottle, covered it in the trim fabric and mounted it as a pen holder. I love it!