Christmas Spirit

You know what gives me the Christmas spirit? Finshed objects! That's what! Like these socks:

Yep! The Red Herring socks are done! Although they're actually aqua, but whatever.

Yarn - Dale of Norway Baby Ull (100% wool, 180 yards), 1 skein in black, 2 skeins in blue (color 6714). It's really soft an springy, and it's superwash, which is an added bonus. My only complaint is that I kept snagging my needles on it and separating the plies.
Needles - size 2 32" addi turbos, for the magic loop-in'
Pattern - Red Herring from Knitty. I followed the pattern pretty closely, but because I have bizarrely long, narrow feet, I added a few more decreases to the foot to make it more snug.

Guess what? More finished objects:

Leila's Brainwash bag is complete! All that was left was to add straps, line it, and add a closure. By the way, that's my boyfriend modelling the bag, not my sister.
Yarn - 1 skein each of Lopi (100% wool, 110 yards) in black and white. I like this yarn to make random bulky things like bags and it's good for felting. It's too rough to make wearable things, though, and it sheds all over creation like a cat. So, I shaved the bag to try to get rid of all the wispies. Which felt really weird when I was doing it.
Needles - 24" size 11 bamboo circulars
Pattern - I used the charts from the Brainwash Bag pattern, but I adapted it to be worked in the round. I didn't felt it, either. I was planning to, but then I got scared of some horrible felting-gone-wrong fiasco messing up the communal washers in my apartment building and chickened out. The final dimensions are 14" long x 10" wide instead of 10" x 10".


Last but not least, I've been working on some swatches the last couple of days. My other, Tamar, started a leftovers blanket last year that's been in my possesion forever, and I haven't added to it yet. And I'd feel like a total jerk if I didn't do anything to it before I see her next week, so I made a bunch of swatches. Hopefully, I'll start swatching for real and I can just start adding those.






So, tomorrow morning I head back to Texas to celebrate Christmas with my family. Which will be nice because I don't see them that often, what with my living in Michigan. I'm going to start a new pair of socks (maybe these cable twist ones) on my flight tomorrow using this sport weight handspun I've had lying around for awhile. After Christmas, I'm flying to New York to visit my friends Dani (who got the purple armwarmers), Tamar, and Carly. And then back to the grind.



A word of warning, though: my family only has dial-up so I may not be able to post until I get back.