{You May Have Noticed....}

You may have noticed that I've left everyone hanging after my last post.   My camera is acting WAY weird and I need to get photos of my knits.  Pretty much since school got out I've been knitting up a storm!  I'm about 75% of the way through a pair of crazy-colour socks and I'm 95% of the way through my Cromarty Cardigan.  I had to stop on that one because I ran out of yarn with only 1 1/2 repeats left to go on the arm.  It was a WAY bummer, but I've ordered another skein and it's here now, so that's good.  I've also knit a whole Steven West shawl since I blogged last! So yeah...   I need to get the camera up and going. lol

As a way of winding up the year, I've made it a tradition to see all of my year's knitting all at once.  So here it is, in the form of a wonderful Picasa collage:

All details can be seen on my Ravelry Project page, if anyone is interested. :)

I think I've done less knitting this year than any year since I started, which makes sense to me when I remember that it's my last year of college. lol   What I notice though is that I'm happier with the knits that I have done - they're ones that I wear.  I think I've figured out my own knitting "style".  Also, the other thing I notice is that I've knit more for myself this year than maybe any other year.  I've learned who is good to knit for and who appreciates the knitting the most.  Much less disappointment this way.

Next year I'd really love to learn a few new skills.  It's cool looking at all of my year's accomplishments together - I see that pushed myself to master the skills I know more thoroughly - I did more difficult lace shawls (Fiori Di Sole and a pair of Cookie A socks) and more complex fair isle (Selbu) than I had before.  I'd like to learn some entrelac for sure, and maybe some steeking.  Though that last one scares me. lol  I'd also like to make time/money to learn some basic spinning on the spindle I have, though to do that I'll have to get a teacher for it I think.  That's not one I'll be happy with teaching myself I don't think.  There's a lady that teaches it at the local School of the Arts I'm involved in - so maybe a class is in order. :)

Do you have any 2012 crafty goals?  What were your big accomplishments from this year? I'd love to hear them!

I hope everyone has a FABulous New Year's Eve tonight and I'll see everyone in 2012 - with pictures I hope!

{Christmas Decorations}

I've done some new things with our decorations this year and I wanted to share with my friends and family who live far away.  So here goes!

I'm very happy with the buffet this year.  You can imagine it smells amazing with the wreath, the rosemary and the mint all right there. The little bud vases were a steal from Pier 1 last week and I adore them.   The little silver bowl has jingle bell ornaments that I can't trust my cats to not climb the tree to get. hehe

This is the front door of the house as seen from our living room.  The natural garland came from the farmers' market and I cut out all those snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling.  The little wreath hanging from the bookcase was an experiment from last year.

And finally, the Christmas tree with all the gifts wrapped and ready to go underneath.  We tried some new things this year: we used 5 strands of tree lights instead of the usual 2, and we used silver beads instead of the fluffy garland.  This last one felt kind of like betraying everything I've known about how to decorate a tree since the day I was born.... but I kind of like it as something different.  We'll see if we keep it going next year or not.

Tomorrow I'll come back and show you how my knitting is going, but if you're just dying and can't wait, I've uploaded new pics to my Ravelry project page.

{On break, finally.}

Christmas break is finalllllyyyyyy here! yay! I'm not going to lie - this end of semester push was the hardest I have ever had and it nearly drove me insane. By the end I was a mere shell of my former self and it's taken me about 3 days to really comes to grip with the idea that it's over.

Lots of lots of knitting therapy.  Really, even more than the knitting, I think I needed a few days of just doing nothing to get it through my head. lol

I managed to get these bad boys out in just about a week!  They are called the Daina Mittens,by Tuulia Salmela. 

I knit the first thumb in the same pattern as the rest of the body, but there just wasn’t enough room in there for the 3 yarns and my thumb, so I had to rip it back and do it in a single colour. Kinda disappointing.  So instead I did something crazy and made the thumbs two different colours: one's green and one's orange. :)

I'll be back tomorrow to talk about some house decorating!