Little Wit Knits – Unplugged

Once I had decided to make socks for all the Grandmas we had to find out on the sly what size the Grandmas feet are. Grandma Aldona turned 90 this year so one of my friends hypothesized that her foot couldn’t be much larger than a US 7. Ahh was that ever not the case at all. Turns out Grandma Aldona has big feet, US Ladies 10. Given that my feet are a mere US ladies 7 this required some thought and figuring out who possessed a similarly sized foot so that I could make sure the feet were long enough. Thank goodness it turned out that one of the KnitGang ™ possesses a US ladies size 9.5! Grandma won’t be getting her socks until this weekend when the boy’s parents go visit her. I am sure she will enjoy them.

Grandma Aldona's socks

Pattern: Cable Twist socks by Adrian Bizilia of HelloYarn
Yarn used: 1.92 skeins of Crystal Palace Merino 5 Colorway 9814 (100% superwash merino ) 50 g / 110 yds
Care Instructions: Machine wash or hand wash in cold, dry flat.
Needle Size: US 3 (3.25mm)
Modifications: I only knit 4 repeats on the cuff.
Finished Size: US Women’s 10
Date Started: 10/25/2008
Date Completed: 11/16/2008
Notes: These socks only appear to have taken so long to knit because I was trying to find a model for a ladies US size 10 to try the socks on to make sure they would fit!

Grandma Aldona's socks

Grandma Aldona's socks

Back in October a few of the local KnitGang ™ moseyed over to YarnMarket for some Saturday afternoon yarn shopping. Petunia introduced me to the Crystal Palace Merino 5 yarns and informed me that they make ever so wonderful socks. Having recently completed a pair of Cable Twist Socks I was struck with the sudden urge to make all of my Grandmas socks for Christmas. I called the boy to get color selections for his Grandmas and yoinked two skeins of creamy yellow for my Grandma Gert. The socks knit up quickly and fortunately they have lots of ease. Grandma Gert’s foot isn’t much larger than mine so I made them a smidgen larger than I would want for my foot. Sunday, when she was at our house with most of the rest of that side of our fam damily, she received her socks. She was very pleased with them and that I took the time to make them for her. My great Grandma used to knit so Grandma Gert is quite familiar with having wonderful hand knit socks.

Grandma Gert's socks

Description: Grandma Gert’s socks
Pattern: Cable Twist socks by Adrian Bizilia of HelloYarn
Yarn used: 1.92 skeins of  Crystal Palace Merino 5 Colorway 2303 (100% superwash merino ) 50 g / 110 yds
Care Instructions: Machine wash or hand wash in cold, dry flat.
Needle Size: US 3 (3.25mm)
Modifications: I only knit 5 repeats on the cuff.
Finished Size: US Women’s 8
Date Started: 11/22/2008
Date Completed: 11/26/2008
Notes: I love making these socks and they go so quickly!

One sock - Cable Twist socks

Grandma Gert's socks

I have always spent my Christmas holiday traveling from one Christmas celebration to another all the way through Epiphany. So by my count I am not late in wishing y’all a Merry Christmas! In fact, I still have at least two more Christmas gift exchanges to complete.

Merry Christmas

from the boy and I, to you and yours.

Picture at arm's reach after Christmas Eve mass.

The boy's eyes closed

The boy's eyes very very open.

This past weekend the boy and I flew to DC for my company Christmas party. I bought a new dress for it in November and realized that I was going to freeze walking to and from the shuttle so I decided to knit a shawl to add some warmth. I found about six shawls from my queue and library and then picked out three possible yarns to knit the shawl out of. Because I like to second guess myself I took photos and posted them for my friends to weigh in on. We all decided that the white yarn would look really nice with the peacock color dress. I wound up the yarn and took it with me to my brother’s for Thanksgiving. Since I was trapped by myself in the car with no crocheters insight I was forced to crochet a 60 some odd stitch chain for the provisional cast-on and I was successful!   Maybe I will figure out this crochet business after all.

I decided to make mine long enough for only one loop long instead of the two loops long the pattern calls for. It was a hit at the Christmas party and I liked the way it fit.

The boy and I before the party.

Description: Christmas Wrap
Pattern: Loop Shawl by Leah Bear
Yarn used: 1.25 skeins of Aslan Trends Invernal Colorway 37 (50% Angora, 25% Merino and 25% Polyamide ) 100g / 295 yds
Care Instructions: Hand wash
Needle Size: US 7 (4.5 mm)
Modifications: I only made mine about half the length called for. I knit it until it was about 43″ long. Then when I tried it on it was too big and was falling down on its own. Talk about some serious negative ease. I then picked out the grafting and ripped out two repeats. That made it a more tolerable width so I grafted it back together.
Finished Size: About 10″ wide by 39″ long.
Date Started: 11/26/2008
Date Completed: 12/18/2008
Notes: If I were to make this again I would probably make it shorter still or I would suck it up and make it the full 80″ long. Also, this yarn is super warm! I highly recommend it and for having angora it rips back nicely.

Stitch pattern up close.

Ignore my oddly placed hands, this was a hard picture to take.

This is from a few Fridays ago but better late than never, eh? At the end of November it got cold enough to warrant building a fire in our freshly cleaned fireplce. Like the good blogger I took pics to share. Like the bad busy blogger I forgot to post them. There was a brief modeling session around the fireplace with some Christmas presents but those won’t be coming to you for another week. For now enjoy the warmth of the fire.

Our first cozy fire in our home.