Merry Christmas to all!

At last, Merry Christmas! Best wishes for the holidays to everyone, young and old, sick and healthy.

Oops on the bookmarks

Well, the news from last night is that the bookmarks aren't bookmarks -- they're knitting needle holders. Oops!

Some of the much older wooden needles inherited from a friend's mother earlier this year will be going into them today.

The i-cord trivets went over well, but I forgot to get photos of them before they went out. However, the patterns are available for free on the Lion Brand web site.

Shamrock: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/BK4K-0603005.html?noImages=0
Celtic Knot: http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/BK4K-0603003.html?noImages=0

For both of these, I simply made a 4-stitch I-cord on size 9 DPs instead of using the spool knitter (or "corking" tool, as it is historically called). The Shamrock was done in 100% cotton yarn, and the Celtic Knot was done in 100% wool in dark and light purple.

It's a bad sign when the cat doesn't trust you with a knife

I haven't cut myself with a knife for over a year. And yet my MIL is convinced that hubby is terrified of me using a knife. She bought me cloth butcher's gloves (the non-commercial kind) because of this supposed fear. Hubby, of course, was nowhere around in order to help me defend myself against the accusation. (I do a lot of defending on my own for 3 months every winter while my MIL is here -- what else can I do when 2 British-Canadians gang up on an American, no matter how non-typical she is?)

Fine. Everything had settled down, and Mum and I were going to have some cheese and crackers for lunch that day. Our male cat Oscar is a lovely, random little boy who feels (and often IS) guilty about a lot of things and will suddenly tear off around the house. I pick up the knife to cut a slice of cheese, an what does Oscar choose to do at that moment? Yup, nails into the carpet, and off goes the grey streak to the other end of the house. What does Mum say?

"It's a bad sign when the cat doesn't trust you with a knife!"

Fortunately, we had a good laugh about it and continued on. Having your MIL living with you for 3 months is not for the faint of heart. This is now the 3rd year of this arrangement (I won't go into the details of why), and we seem to have most of the problems worked out. Granted, I'm running around so much that very little designing is getting done, but when I finally do say that something must be done that isn't on her schedule, I'm allowed time to do it. So it's a matter of putting my foot down at strategic times.

Also in this process, I'm learning how to knit socks! It's using a photocopy Mum has from a 1940s pattern book, and I'm using size 3 needles instead of 2 (because when I was ready to start, I didn't have a set of 2s), so they're a little bigger than they should be, but one sock is done, and the other is ready to have its heel turned. Woohoo!


Oops. Thanks, Zoe. Let's try that again...


Also on the finished project list is a cabled scarf from Big Needle Knitting. This is my first cabled item ever. I've finally figured it out! I've also discovered that I really kinda dislike working on the bigger needles. Go figure!


A couple of fun bits of news. 1) Lulu.com sales continue. (Yay, and thank you, whoever you are!) 2) I'm now on Ravelry! I think there's a sidebar option for that here, so will attempt to add that shortly. Screen name: horsenround.

Well, it's time to go. I'll try not to leave you hanging for another 13 days this time. I have a friend & client coming over to go through web site things this morning. However, before I go, here's a lovely pair of bookmarks from a costumer friend whom I will be visiting tonight...



Aren't they gorgeous???

Little Knit Jingle Bells

Well, from the poll, it appears that out of the 2 votes (thank you two for visiting and voting!!!), both people had heard of Tunisian crochet, hairpin lace, and knitting looms/boards, but no one has yet heard of beadpoint. Looks like I need to do a bit of presenting! Stay tuned for more on beadpoint and a new survey.

As promised, here is my first free pattern!
You can also download this pattern from my site: http://www.horse-round.com/shop/freepatterns.html.


Traditional Jingle Bells
A traditional knitting pattern written by Kathy Kemp (http://www.horse-round.com/)




These adorable bells can be made in nearly any type of yarn. Use them as Christmas ornaments or attach them to packages. You can even use pastel yarn for baby shower gifts or Easter ornaments!

Materials:

• 1 skein of worsted weight yarn, or yarn of choice


• 1 pair of knitting needles in 1 size smaller than recommended for chosen yarn


• Yarn needle


• Scissors

Directions:

Cast on 14 sts.

Row 1 (right side): Knit across.

Row 2 (wrong side): Purl 4 sts; knit 10.

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until you have 46 rows. The edge with the purl stitches will curl slightly on its own.

Bind off, leaving a tail that is long enough to sew up the edge.


Finishing:

1. Fold in half so that the right side is inside. The curling edge should be on one side.
   


2. Sew up the edge. This becomes the side of the bell.


3. Turn right side out. Attach a metal jingle inside and ½ inch loop on the top.

Anyone have a spare nose?

Well, the Thanksgiving-and-meet-the-fiance weekend went quite well. It was obvious before, but now it's pretty certain (as much as you can ever be) that Mom and Bruce will do very well together and continue to make each other very happy. YAY!

The downside is that a cold bug decided to ride along. Whether Bruce brought it with him, or if Hubby brought it from work, or I brought it from demoing at Ben Franklin, it doesn't really matter. Bruce was sick by Thursday evening, Allan was sick by Saturday evening, and I followed shortly after on Sunday.

The worst thing is is the William Shatner sneezes: Must. Sneeze. Now. Look into. The light. Don't. Move. It's com-- And then nothing but sinuses and eyes filling. All that energy put into a triviality. Well, maybe to be fair, we should call them Captain Kirk sneezes.

So here I sit, reading through my blog list, attempting to get enough energy for the day. Although, I do have to say that Yarn Harlot's toilet seat adventure (yeah, you kinda have to read it) definitely strikes home. We don't have the freaky European fixtures, just ultra-cheaply made, non-standard manufactured house fixtures. We're still not sure if it was the previous owners who did things this badly, or if it was already made that way. We've already had it proven on multiple occasions that the owners weren't terribly bright. But how smart is it to personally finance a house to someone without doing some kind of credit check?

At any rate, here I sit with Zoe curled up on my lap...


Although, now that I've taken the photo, she has gone, shocked that I would take a photo of her with bed-body (sort of like bed-head, but cats tend to get the full-body effect), returned to squawk for attention, and left again in search of a warm spot that doesn't take humiliating photos of her.

In the meantime, I have to decide whether to cancel my beadpoint class tonight -- yeah, another one with no sign-ups, despite the heavy interest during demos -- and perhaps when to go in to demo and gather people for the next Beadpoint and Crochet 101 classes.

On the bright side, I've finished the drop-stitch knit skirt and returned to a very old UFO, a creme-colored afghan with a two-tone green Celtic knot border, all done with tiny granny squares. I'm trying to assemble the granny squares as I go, mainly so that Hubby doesn't have to listen to me complain while trying to assemble the whole thing at once. Here's some the progress so far, to make up for not posting a picture of the skirt...

Later today, I might write up and post the pattern for the little knit Christmas bells, 'cause they're just so darn cute!