Holidays and Beyond

It has been a long time! I think this has been the longest I’ve gone without blogging since I started in August of ’05, and it feels weird. Be warned this post is going to be long and full of pictures.

Things have been going really well here. First, I was swept up by the holidays. I struggled a little with jumping straight from the school to the craziness of completing knitting and baking, delivering gifts and enjoying festivities. I was able to hang out with friends some and really began feeling the many parts of my creative side firing off now that they were free from school. I tried to avoid worrying about how to obtain students, and decided that once I got back from Colorado I would work on that.

Oh yeah, I went to Colorado! Colorado Springs to be exact. I can’t believe we made it there (with the blizzard and all) but we did. We were originally supposed to fly out on December 20th, but that was the day of the blizzard, so our flight got canceled. We went through many hours of standing in line, but it was worth it because we were able to fly out on the 23rd, just in time for Christmas. We barely made it back (due to the second large storm they got) but came back just in time for our most recent home improvement.
Seeing my family was great, rushed, but wonderful. I knitted lots of stuff for Christmas. Anthony and my Dad got matching hats. Amy (my sister) and Mom got fetching gloves made out of Rowan tapestry. Anthony and my mom share Christmas Eve as their birthday, so my mom got a sweater (my second one) for her birthday and Anthony got some pj pants (sewn, not knitted). I also never sent my sister her birthday gift (November 1st) so I brought her some of my hand dyed yarn. Of course, since we didn’t have a camera, and our trip was so rushed, I didn’t get pictures of anything. But hopefully they will be kind enough to send a few pics so I can share.

Top of Pikes Peak on December 26th, 2006.  Dad and Anthony are wearing their hats.

I also made Anthony a tool belt and it turned out great. We have our camera back so here are a few of the things we have been working on.

Before we left we were able to install our new window.  It is so much bigger than the old one.  Imagine cutting the bottom half of that window away and that was what was there.  This is so much better. Again, I didn’t do any of the brute work, but we did have several friends over to help and I made soup to appease the hungry men.

Our newest and best improvement has been the pellet stove. See the hearth? I tiled that! We have an edge to give it a more finished look, but have been to busy enjoying the warmth to bother with finishing it off.

I finally figured out how to use selective focus and control the digital camera manually, which is what I prefer doing. I have an SLR film camera, that I use for special occasions. I missed the control I had with that, but knew that the digital was capable of more. Hopefully the pictures here will become better and better quality.

This is a snowman my grammie sent me for the holidays. He was my test subject.

Aren’t they pretty? I’m very proud of these. The yarn is some of my handspun. I modeled them after some mittens that a friend of mine had purchased in Ireland, but added a cable that is a little more modern looking. I plan on writing these out as a pattern, but I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to write out the charts for this. Especially the cable symbols. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear it. I’ve heard of using Excel but how do you get the cable symbols on the chart? I’m going to try to work it out soon.

(Click for larger)

This is some handspun that I finished up. It is the November color from the Spunky Eclectic club. I couldn’t decide if liked it for awhile, but I think I do. This wool blend is fuzzier than what I’m used to, but I really enjoyed spinning it. Plus, I spun it up in one day (the weekend after we got back from Colorado. Can you tell I missed my wheel?) including the plying. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I’m sure it will reveal itself as time goes.

This is my progress picture. It’s the Coral Crossing from the Fall IK ’06. It should really be called “The Ring” sweater, because I’ve primarily knit it while watching not only Wagner’s “Ring Cycle”, but The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. We still need to watch the “Return of the King” (plus miscellaneous extras) so I’m sure I’ll have the front done soon.

That’s all I’ve got for now. This may also be one of my longest posts I’ve ever done. Of course I’ve been working on other things, and now that I have the camera back I have all sorts of FO’s to share and add to my 2006 FO page. So far this year has proven to be very exciting, full of change, and a better balance to life.