Merry Christmas

I was going to put in a really cute photo of the mess left over from Christmas, but when it was time to upload the photos, the camera said that there were 101 photos to upload.  What?!  Turns out that my husband took a zillion photos at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra show and I just don't feel like sorting through them right now...so no photos. 

The holiday was really lovely.  We spent several hours at Aaron's Dad's and had a great time.  The boys made out like little bandits.  I got a big giftcard to Sephora, a new beta, some inter-changable needles from knit picks, and Bones season 5 on DVD.  I just bought myself a little gift too...Intwined Pattern Studios chart designer!  This is going to really take my pattern and chart designs in a whole new direction.  I can create my charts, do written directions to match them, invert charts if I need to (which I frequently do need to), and have access to knitting symbols all for a ridiculously reasonable price.  I couldn't be more excited, especially since I've been designing things in my sleep lately and it always takes me more time to create the chart than it does to write the pattern out. 

My most recent design is a tie for little guys.  I knit a wonderful tie for Dante from Hilary Smith Callis called Carrie's Ties.  He glanced at the screen as I was reading her blog and back-tracked to tell me that he thought a knitted tie was cool and he would wear one if he had one...  so I bought the pattern and two skeins of Seduce Colors in # 4481 Dreams and knit him one (I finished it last night).  It's really a lovely pattern and the yarn is beautiful.  I hated knitting it because the Seduce is so unforgiving and doesn't stretch, so when you knit in magic-loop the last stitch of every row is always tight and I had to force it over the needle, but the finished look was worth it.  It just drapes so nicely and has fantastic sheen and color.  So anyway, while I was knitting the tie for Dante, I realized that Alex would want one and that he's too small for a traditional tie.  That led me to design a tie for him that looks just like a real tie that goes around the neck, but features a button band for an adjustable fit.  I've knit the first one in SWTC Bamboo #144, and I'll be working on a few different sized and weights, and then releasing a pattern.  I was inspired by Hilary's slip-stitch feature in the full sized tie and after trying different methods to create a seam, I decided that her feature works best to allow the tie to lay flat and I incorporated it.  That's the end of the pattern similarities, as my version is worked flat and seamed in back like a real tie, and is made in three pieces to allow the shape and fit.  Photos to come soon, after I knit a few more samples and get the 101 photos off my camera.