Last Pair of 2011

I had to squeak in one last pair for 2011. Okay, I got a bit lazy and made them shorties but they're still socks. Plus living in SoCal, I like to wear socks but traditional calf length socks are not so practical. In addtion, they can look kind of dorky with my athletic shoes so this solves that problem. Also, I can be pretty dorky on my own, thank you very much! :)





This pair will be given to my dear childhood friend Kathy that I've known since the 2nd grade ( a very long time) and since she has princess feet that can feel any little bump (design element) on her sensitive footsies, these will be perfect for her. Cute stripes in holiday colors that she can enjoy year round.

I think I have to knit more since I have lots of leftover sock yarn waiting to be used. :)

Knitted Toy

I finished this cute toy earlier this month but forgot to take pictures until today. It's a perfect project to use up those sock yarn leftovers and this time I used up the yarn I used for Josh's socks. It is a self striping yarn which makes it so cute and fun to look at.



This is for Curly, Carol & Buddy's little dog and we'll see if he likes it or not.




Josh sure does. He is automatically drawn to it by squishing, tossing and catching it. I still have enough of that sock yarn to make another one for Josh.



2011 is winding down and both Hector & I have a nasty cold that knocked us on our butts. We are much better but we're hoping the kids will have escaped the icky cold. Not fun. At all.

So I leave this year, thankful for my loved ones, family, friends and to those who I know in the blogosphere. Here's to 2012! May it be healthy, prosperous and happy! :)
And lots of knitting...

Hockey and Hats

As Christmas approaches swiftly, I start knitting hats to 'pad' the Christmas gift pile. Over the course of this year, I still knit mostly socks which almost always start off as mine but for whatever reason, sometimes the socks don't fit me...too big, too small or not my taste so I throw them into the gift pile.

It works and I've a good selection going but since the women/girls benefit for the most part, I feel bad and knit a couple of hats. Okay, if you follow my most recent completed hats, they were for women/girls. I knit a hat for Josh too although that doesn't count. There is another hat I finished a long time ago (frisky reindeer hat) that I will give to Alex. That isn't much on the guys' side of the family. I will say this that some of the guys in the family are pretty darn picky. One teen won't wear hats because it will mess up his hair. Okay, he's off the list. Another male only wants a black plain hat which will kill me with boredom and blindness. Okay, I did buy some black wool but here it is, December 21, and no hat. So he loses out again this year. I knit a nephew a striped hat several years ago and he's moving to Sacramento area at the end of the year so I could knit him a hat and mail it to him.

I guess I'm saying, I'm done knitting hats. :)

Saying that, I did finish this Lucky 7 Hat and who knows who will grab it. I will find out if my nephew from above will want it since he is a black hat kind of guy too. I just managed to squeak out his striped hat with black and muted shades of Noro.

Tyler models Lucky 7.

So that leads to hockey...such a traumatic month ( I sorta kid). My team (LA Kings) starts losing, not scoring and then their head coach gets fired. Another one is hired and today he takes over. Kat and I head over to watch their first practice together. I will pause and ask...is there any other professional sport that have practices open to the public? It's great.  :)

New head coach Darryl Sutter

Trio

The players looked upbeat and eager. Tomorrow will be the beginning, we play the Ducks our cross town rivals.







Hector and I will be there cheering on the Kings!!

New Hats

this is the Escargot Hat from Knitty.com. I had to felt the hat because it was HUGE! And see even after shrinkage, it still fits my bighead. Ha! It is kind of cute and I didn't think that I could pull this style off but not too shabby. :)



I added the cute rose buttons to the flyer cap  but it's not for me as shown in the pic below. I think it will look cute on a young girl. Well, it was never for me anyway! :)





Oh, much better model although still big for A...

Wanderer

Josh is growing up. He refuses to use his Curious George umbrella and shuns his cool earflap hat that I knit for him because one kid commented on it, said it looked funny. Josh, of course, can't totally figure out the context but takes it at face value so now he won't wear the hat.

Time to knit something more grownup and mature to suit my little guy. Enter the Wanderer Cap featured in Weekend Hats.  I love hats although not all of them suit me. They are the perfect gift to knit during the Christmas season and pretty fast. I still have 2 other hats that are done but need some finishing touches. :)

More photos later on those but here is the Wanderer.







Hopefully, Josh stays close by home and won't wander off any time soon!

Monday

It's raining and even though I knew it was going to happen, I procrastinated grocery shopping until this morning so that was an experience. Maybe in the back of my mind, when I hear rain I think/hope it's more like scattered showers but no, it's a constant steady rain since 8 am.

We're not made for that kind of rain so the storm drains get seriously backed up and last weeks winds created more debris that causes more problems. I'm home now, grocery shopping done and making turkey soup and Chinese porridge jook that smells really good and I'm starving. Won't be ready until later today so I have to wait.

Finished this Escargot hat over the weekend but it's terribly big so I felted it and it fits better but still big. I think it will still look cute but felted. I must knit looser than I thought so major adjustments will have to be made for the next one. When it dries, I take pics of it and I hadn't thought of taking before pictures... Oh well.

It's really cute and unique but not really my style. I wish I could carry off the vintage look but no, I don't think I ever could. Into the gift pile, it goes! :0

Weekend Post

Nice low key weekend. I didn't do much of anything but lounge around the house watching Hector / Tyler play the new Zelda Skyward Sword knitting until it was time to head over to Staples Center with the whole family for the Kings game.

Great view of the entire ice but at times, I felt disconnected from the actual game playing but it was nice and made me appreciate our usual seats. :)

View from the upper seats.

Nice view of our usual seats way down there.

Josh enjoyed some TV in bed with me. I wanted to capture his 'purdy eyes'. :) I finished another project and maybe I won't post those pictures just yet. But I did get my final installment  of my sock yarn club with happy colors perfect for the season.

I'm roasting another turkey in our rotisserie and it smells wonderful. Just in time for the next couple of days that are going to be rainy and cold. I think I will attempt turkey soup too!

Round Up

I'm doing better keeping up with my 365 Project but my regular blog is being neglected so here is some of what I've been up to.

My mom had the crazy idea of eating chestnuts but didn't realize how to cook/roast them. Since she never uses her oven nor wants to, she gave them to me to make & give some to her. I had to look up how to roast them and there are several ways, some of which doesn't require an oven but I tried the oven method.



They came out okay although if my mom springs the idea again next winter, I'll try the boil first then broil method that I read the street vendors use to get their chestnuts perfect.

Kat and I went to the Kings game last night and short story, the LA Kings lost 4-2. :(
The fans were frustrated and not happy with the Kings play but still managed to entertain and have a good time. 

Before (with beer)

After (beer)

Bailey

Bud Man

Wild celebrate their win

Another game Saturday and our family of four will be going so that should be fun!!

Flyer Cap

Another quick hat project that used up my leftover yarn  from my Vortex hat. I followed the pattern as written which is a tad short for me but it will fit smaller heads fine. I still need to find buttons to sew on along with the front flap which will complete the aviator look.

As usual, Josh was very compliant in modelling. I might have to include a warning to all the young girls to not look directly into Josh's eyes or instant swooning might occur. :)







I love Noro's bright colors and in the future I would knit the hat longer to fit me but that's just me! :) I'm thinking of gifting this to our friend's daughter in San Diego who is in her teen years so hopefully she'll like it.

Recap

Recently, I went through my project page on Ravelry and counted 40 pairs of socks since 2008! Yikes! That's really cool and true when I heard that sock knitting was addictive! Even though the weather is much colder than usual, I don't get to wearing much knitwear as I'd like but socks are perfect and so is sock weight (fingering) yarn.

So I thought since I've been told that I'm difficult to shop for gifts, here are my favorite yarn websites.

The Loopy Ewe


Knitpicks

I'm also thinking of joining a sock knitting club like I did last year. It was really fun to get a package with some nice sock yarn and a couple of patterns to go along with it. The gift that keeps on giving. :)

For your amusement...

or not but this sums up a typical day at the pharmacy. I've been out of the 'biz' for about 5+ years but this article brought me right back to those crazy times at the pharmacy.

Why it take so long to fill your Rx at the pharmacy...


And while humorous and slightly snarky, this really DOES happen more frequently and I thank the Lord that I don't work in retail pharmacy any more!

Thanks Hector!! :)

Green Waffel

This morning, the hat was still unfinished but a few hours later, it's complete!! :) Made smaller (as in shorter) to fit a youth but very stretchy so that it will grow with the person.
I used a green yarn that I got in the hockey playoff pools earlier this year and I finally found a the right project for it.

I was thinking whether I should add a pom pom but it looks nice as is and not everyone likes pom poms. I plan of gifting this to our friend's daughter so I need to knit another hat ASAP for her sister although not the same hat since I got bored with this on the 2nd time around.

So here are the pictures... modelled by A.