Merry Christmas!

I can finally post again. Unfortunately, in order to be able to post I had to loose “my” blog! The oh so friendly and “helpful” folks at blogger basically said the only thing left for me to try to fix my blog would be to use a new template, which means giving up (for now anyway) all the stuff I worked so hard to get into the blog in the first place!

Well, at least I can write posts. I’ve saved (hopefully it worked) a copy of my blog template and when (if?) I get a chance I’ll go in and start working on adding my stuff back to the blog. This is going to be so much fun!

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone. Today is Christmas eve and we are getting ready to go to Grandma’s house for the big round the tree, toddler opening gifts thing. Should be quite a fun time with 3 little ones to open things. When we get home we’ve been invited to the neighbors party though I have a feeling a little someone will be out cold by then. He’s actually napping right now, has been for quite a while actually.

On the knitting end of things its been an interesting few weeks. I dug out of a bag from months ago the Aran cardigan that I had started for someone else only to discover that although it was finished except sewing together it would likely no long fit the intended receipient. Then I was thinking it might fit Cousin A as a Christmas gift but once I really took a good look at the pattern and the sweater I realized it would be far too big for her. So our little guy got another sweater since he’s the one that it fits just right! Actually, he wore it to church this morning and will be wearing it to Grandma’s house in a bit. That means he’s gotten 3 hand knit sweater out of me this year. That folks is a record. I don’t even have 3 sweaters from me at the moment!

Once again I ran out of time before finishing most of the other gifts. DH is getting a scarf, a double sided cable from Scarf Style, can’t think of the name off-hand so I’ll update that later. Its being done in Olive Green Patons Classic and is about 1/3 finished. Mostly because I’ve tried to do it when he isn’t home . . . .

Other baby niece is getting a sweater . . . as soon as I manage to finish it. I’m on the sleeve caps with the sewing up, buttonbands and neck bands to go. Its actually turning out really cute and I may even be able to figure out how to shrink it down a bit to do a second one for her little sister.

The one other thing that I tried for a holiday gift, which actually did get finished is that I made a pair of mittens for my mother. There is a cute family story to go with them so they really will be special for her.

When she was a kid, her grandmother, who was a seamstress and knitter, spinner, crocheter and all, used to make wool mittens for my mom and her siblings each winter. No easy task since she is one of 9 children! Well, every year by the time winter really got going there would wind up being a shortage of the wool mittens, some always getting lost etc. The kids would all argue over who got the wool ones that their grandmother made and who got stuck with the store bought acryllics that their own mother picked up for them. They all knew that the wool mittens would keep them much warmer and they would be able to play outside longer before really getting cold in Grandma J’s wool mittens. Better a mismatched pair of Grandma’s wool mittens than a matching pair of the store bought kind.

So to honor that tradition and the Grandmother who passed on the knitterly gene to me, I’ve made my Mother a pair of wool mittens. The pattern is from Piecework and was taken from a pair of fingerless mitts in the Weldon’s books. The neat part is that my GreatGrandmother was probably knitting at the time that the patterns were originally published so it seemed like an appropriate pattern choice. Now my mom will have a nice warm pair of wool mittens to play outside in the snow with her grandchildren.

Okay, baby is up, off to Grandma’s!