Travel Knitting

I have less than two minutes before David is supposed to pick me up so we can be on our way. So in short this yarn (below) will be these socks.
And these skeins of wool goodness will become these mittens.
I HAD to cast these on over the weekend cause one was a new cast one for me so I am a little farther than I should be, but I took a few sweater patterns and my needles in case I need a new project.

He's here! bye!

Update

Sorry, I've been knitting up a storm and there has been no time for typing - but now I can share the results, well the ones I have photographed.

Here we have one non-angry elephant. I figured out exactly where I went wrong on the pattern thanks to Ravelry I was able to figure out what my miss understanding was on the angry elephant. I finished it in two days, which is good because I wasn't feeling motivated to work on it much more. And now the angry elephant has a reason to be angry because it had to give up an arm and half a leg for this elephant.


I also completed Sheldon II. The only modification I made to the pattern was picking up the leg stitches rather than knitting the legs separately and sewing them on. I always have a hard time stuffing Sheldon because I don't want him over stuffed but his neck is a little floppy whether or not he is stuffed firmly. I think I found a happy medium

On Thursdays I ended up going to Pueblo, CO for a luncheon. Yes, for those of you who know where Alamosa, Colorado is you know that I spent four hours in the car for 2 hours of luncheon but I don't even care. It was wonderful to get out of the office, and the day before I had a request from a friend for a market bag, which I was able to start and complete on my journey to and from Pueblo. So it was a nice surpise.

I have cast on for my travel knitting projects - I'll try to get a photo tonight so I can share them with you before I get on the train tomorrow night. More about that later.

In other news David, myself, and our housemates went out to the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree this weekend. It was a bit chilly and snowy but fun. None of us were demanding about what kind of tree we wanted to it was a fairly quick pick.










Click any of the images for a lager view!

Angry Elephant

I can't stand it. The elephant still looks angry so I'm gonna make another one. I know, I know, rediculous. I will have enough yarn, but I might need to get a bit more stuffing.

Things I learned:
- apparently I put the body on the wrong side of the head (that is the only way I can figure for the angry eyes)

-that I need to stuff the the head/neck more firmly

- the legs are supposed to be a bit longer that the arms

So I'll correct those things with this next one - hopefully I'll get it done in just a couple days. I'm nearing half way done with my second Sheldon. Not second in a row, just the second one I have ever done. Once that is done I'll start my Ellie II (I have to use the same needles.).

Okay back to speed knitting.

May Your Coffee Always Be Hot

I completed two of my three French Press Cozy orders so I thought I'd share a few photos with you.
Prof. Plum and Coffee with Cream
I'm starting to get a little frustrated with the learning curve on this new camera - I'm finding all my photos to be yellowish.

Also I'm messing with new banner ideas... thoughts? I'm going to try to take some knitting related photos, but right now I don't have a good one.

Custom Work in Progress

This post has been three days in the making for no good reason so let's sum up.

My "yay" for today is that my refurbed Sansa mp3 player works on my office computer without installing software, which means I can listen to something other than Pandora at work (though Pandora is wonderful!). Previously my refubed Zen required installation of software which kept me from being able to listen to my own tunes.

Yesterday I turned on the Christmas music for the first time this season (other than singing by myself in the car). Also I decorated the office for Christmas, hence why I had to turn on the music, I certainly wasn't in the mood until listening to a little Bing Crosby.

So if you wandered around my Etsy shop lately you might be thinking, "hmm, she really hasn't done much with this for the holidays." And that is sorta true. I have been getting more custom requests than anything else. A few from friends and some from Etsy convos. I'm certainly not complaining- it is enough work to keep me busy and I enjoy designing specific items for customers. So all the photos on this post are from works in-progress or ones that I have finished, but were in progress when I took the photo (sorry, like I said I have been adding to this post for three days).

Note to self - tomorrow I must watch White Christmas!

Whoopie Pies

I volunteered to make the desserts for our Thanksgiving feast this past week. After spending an afternoon browsing Gourmet and Epicurious.com I finally decided I should make some traditional pumpkin pies and then I figured we had to have some chocolate so I settled on making Whoopie Pies.

I have never made pumpkin pies or crusts so I chose from the trusty recipes on Gourmet and was very please with both the pumpkin and the pastry. Even more exciting is that the crust on the left over pie is still crispy! Although it did remind me how much I hate my tiny oven.


I began searching the internet for the appropriate whoopie pie recipe. See, there are two kinds of filling for whoopie pies - crisco or marshmallow fluff. I find the crisco filling to be the more legit filling - though in normal life I avoid both crisco and marshmallow fluff.I couldn't find any recipe that I felt I could trust. You know that feeling? None of them were from website I had used in the past and after reading the recipes I wasn't sure it was what I was going for. So I called my mother-in-law, she is a good cook and has Amish heritage so her whoopie pie recipe is to be trusted. The result was success! They were husband and Goshen/Newton Mennonite persons approved!