First FO of 2008!

My daughters had a sleepover over the Christmas holidays, just to break up the - well, the boredom, at the end there. I think it's because the first part of break is filled with visiting and wrapping, then opening and eating and playing... then the next week, after New Year's, there's so little to do. Mom wants to rest, but the kids are circling like vultures, looking for something to pick over. So we had a sleepover, lots of girls - seven, including mine. That's only four girls invited over, but all in all, it felt like a lot of girls. I told them with seven girls in one place, we ought to be able to change the world. All we needed was a lever... Anyhoo, my husband and I thought we'd back carefully out of the room when they started watching movies (Aquamarine was one, and that is the most preteen, hair-flipping movie I have ever had the pleasure...). After all, kids at slumber parties should get a little space to play truth or dare and giggle over cute boys, agonize over Hannah Montana or Miley, et cetera.

I should be honest here. We had a child monitor placed in the hallway. Shhhh.

But I was very pleased and surprised when they asked me to come down and watch Indian in the Cupboard with them. I mean, I guess nine years old is a pretty good age, when it's still cool to have your mom in the room. But since the holidays were over, I was without knitting, so I grabbed a random ball of wool and made some mittens. The ball of wool I grabbed happened to be orange, but it was just an extra pair of mittens, possibly to be given to the school. If they were warm, the odd color didn't matter, really. (Can you tell I'm not into orange so much?) But when I got them done the next day, my youngest loved them. "They don't have bumps inside," says she. The decreases in mittens drive her crazy - because, you know, I needed another obsessive personality in the house. Don't you hate it when you rub off on your kids?

So I couldn't just let orange mittens happen. They have to have a hat. (Oh, OCD, you are a friend of mine) So the next night, I cast on for an earflap hat from this book, wool stripes this time, to cuten things up. "Cuten" may not be a word. And the next morning - voila! All patterns should go so quickly. It might have been the stripes, but I finished it fast, stuck it on her little head, and let her pose. Sorry about the not so perfect picture, but posing meant laying on the bed, pretending to be asleep. My kids seem to love this pose more than any other.


See?


How cute is that kid and her bunny??? And here's a pic of what he's given us, which I now have no idea what to do with.


Neat, ay? Other than thrummed mittens, though, which are great, I'm not sure what else to do with the wool. I don't have any carders to mix it in with another wool, so I'm just saving it, until I learn more. I'm sure I'll be glad that I did. It is really the softest stuff. However, as soon as Dot (the bunny) saw the wool, he started crawling all over it. I don't know exactly what he was thinking, but it may have been amorousness. (I'm really making up the words today!) See all the hands holding him back? So we scooped him up quick and put the wool away. Funny how picture ideas don't always go the way you think, isn't it?

Final pictures, and I'll let you go! I'm spinning up some sock yarn, and had to show the progress. I think this is just so pretty. The wool is from Copperpot Woolies", 70% merino, 30% viscose, 4 ounzes, colorway 46. I've been wanting to make sock yarn for awhile, and I can't wait to see how much I end up with. By the by, the artwork for the backgrounds of these photos was done by my bunny-hugging middle child. Jackson Pollack, watch out!




A quick aside - Don't forget to leave your New Year's Resolution in the comments of this entry. I'll do a drawing this Sunday and send the winner some Christmas colored dishcloth yarn, to get an early jump on next year's holidays!