Knitting and spinning. The fun never stops.

That’s what I am! Gobsmacked!

For as some of you already know, birthday gifts keep popping up for me!

Friday night I found a gift on my computer chair — a gorgeous scarf knitted from Colinette “Fandango” (which is a yummy hand dyed cotton chenille):

The card says it’s from the very talented Emma of Emma & Co!

I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this scarf, and I’ve made good use of it already, for this is what it looks like here:

A couple of inches of snow yesterday with the potential for a couple more today.

Saturday night we had my birthday party with my family. Among my pile of family gifts a gift appeared without explanation:

Gifts from wonderful Kathy of Far From the Madding Crowd! A teeny-tiny fair isle sweater that I can use as a Christmas ornament (but I’ll undoubtedly display it year round), and some beautiful vintage earrings.

And if that weren’t enough.

Yesterday I put my knitting down and when I returned to it, an intriguing little box was sitting on top of it, along with two bars of Norwegian chocolate!

Gifts from the incomparable Theresa of Bagatell!

Clockwise from top left, a darling little safetypin/bead pin of the Norwegian flag, a little Norwegian flag garland, Norwegian chocolate, and five beautiful pewter clasps! The clasps will be wonderful for the next Norwegian cardi I make.

Umm . . . there’s a reason why there was only one chocolate bar available for the photo . . .

So Emma, Kathy, and Theresa . . . THANK YOU! I love you guys!

And this is still a mystery to me. I know that you guys have coordinated this through Ian, even though he steadfastly maintains his innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence. For example, when confronted with the gift sitting on my knitting, he said “Huh. How’d that get there?” with a look of pure innocence on his face. You have to admire that. He will not cave under questioning.

The Carvel Ice Cream Cake

Yes, we were bad. For the uninitiated (and you are to be pitied) you can learn about Carvel Ice Cream here. Here’s the before photo of my cake:

Here is the after photo:

Perhaps I should say “oink.” In our defense, it was a small cake.

And it didn’t stop there! Friday night we had s’mores. Because I had never in my life eaten, much less prepared, a s’more, the chef went to work.

Ignore the large bottle of vodka visible in the photo . . .

Virgin Sweater

For those of you who have read thus far, yes, you actually get some knit content! Here is the Virgin sweater as of yesterday afternoon:

Gotta love the Ott Light for taking photos!

Some of you may remember that I got the wool for this in a trade with Theresa a couple months ago. It is the yarn called for in the pattern, Vestlandsgarn from Gjestal. I have altered the pattern to knit a pullover rather than a cardi.

What I’m doing is knitting the back chart for both the back and front. I started by casting on 20 fewer stitches than called for in the body of the sweater (total of back chart stitches doubled) and knitting 15 rounds in black for the facing, purling one row for the turning, then knitting 2 rounds in black, increasing 20 stitches evenly on the second row. Then two more rounds in black and then the two-color pattern. When I get to the armholes, I’ll follow the pattern directions for casting off stitches and casting on for the steeks, and doing the armhole shaping. Same for the neck, except I’ll have to play it by ear a bit to alter from the neck for the cardi to a neck for the pullover. It’s a round-neck cardi, so it should be easy to adjust.

I’m using US sixe 3 for the body (I used a 2 for the bottom band) and am getting the gauge nicely.

And I’m very grateful for my Ott Light for reading the chart. I may still go blind knitting this, but it’ll be at a slower pace!

Lastly, Izzy says “Happy New Year” to all!

Hey you guys! Thanks for all the birthday wishes you sent my way. You all are great.

I had a good birthday — didn’t go to work (and am not going today either) so I got to sleep late. Then out to brunch and shopping. Then champagne with dinner. Mmmmm!

We won’t discuss the Carvel ice cream cake. The humanity!

And another amazing surprise gift! This one from Sabine in Berlin, Germany. A ball of wonderful Lang Jawoll sock yarn! And it’s in lovely shades of blues and greens, my favorite colors:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I was delighted, amazed, and touched. Sabine, thanks so much for your thoughtfulness!

New WIP

On New Year’s Day I started knitting the Virgin sweater from Norsk Strikkedesign. I altered the pattern to make it a tunic rather than a cardigan, and am using the pattern chart for the back on both the back and the front. Here’s an early progress pic:

Again, thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes. Have a great weekend everyone!

As you can see, we spared no expense for the New Year’s Eve decorations:

And poor Izzy was just plumb tuckered out on New Year’s Day!

Surprises!

I got two wonderful surprises! First, this from Stephanie, a knitting friend in New Zealand.

It’s a first day cover of postage stamps for Lord of the Rings. New Zealand is where the movies were filmed, of course. The stamps are beautiful. Thank-you Stephanie for such a thoughtful gift!

And then guess what? Flor in Brazil sent me a birthday present. What a great surprise!

This is Knitting Fair Isle Mittens and Gloves by Carol Rasmussen Noble, which was on my Amazon.com wishlist. I’ve taken a quick look through it and it looks wonderful. There are lots of beautiful traditional fair isle patterns and I can’t wait to knit something from it.

So thank you Stephanie and Flor for your thoughtfulness and generosity.

And yes . . . today is my birthday!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2003!

First Sweater Story

Yesterday Joe posted about the first sweater he knitted in his blog. So of course I have to do the same. What better time than New Years Day?

I was nine or ten years old and had been knitting squares for a few years. I told my mom I wanted to knit a real sweater. We were living in the U.K. back then, so we picked out a pattern leaflet from the knitting section of one of the big department stores in London. A pullover with raglan sleeves and crewneck done in stockinette stitch. My mom had color cards from one of the British wool companies so I picked out a bright red wool, worsted weight and she ordered it. I started knitting the sweater immediately but, being a kid, lost interest. I did pick it up again and finish it when I was about 14. My mother, wise woman that she was, had me start making a size several times too large for me, so it fit me as a teenager. I did wear it alot, but I don’t remember what ultimately happened to it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my first sweater.

New Year’s Eve is special for Izzy and me . . . it’s our anniversary.

On the afternoon of December 31, 1986, I stopped by a friend’s house. Her son had just returned home to live and had brought a six-month old kitten named Emily with him. He had picked up Emily on the side of a highway in Richmond, Virginia when she was a tiny kitten in late Summer 1986 after seeing her being tossed from a moving car.

There was already an elderly cat living there who was not amused at having her territory invaded by a newcomer. So Emily was relegated to the basement pending disposition of her case and had been there about a week.

When I was over there that afternoon they “accidentally” let Emily out of the basement. She ran up the stairs, jumped in my lap, turned around a couple of times, settled down, and gave a huge sigh. And gazed up at me adoringly.

At this point they were already getting out a box for me to take her home in.

I already had four cats and did not need another one, but of course she came home with me. I renamed her Isolde, because all the other cats had Arthurian names: Arthur, Kay, Bedivere, and Tristan. (And the dear departed Gawain.)

So Izzy and I always look back fondly on New Year’s Eve.

In knitting news . . .

I worked on my Knitty project last night. No photos of anything, I’m afraid. Did you ever have one of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong did? That was me yesterday. Everything I attempted to accomplish at work exploded in my face, and even the commute in and out was a nightmare.

So I didn’t even attempt to play with my Ott Light. I figured I’d break it.

Emma asked about the rest of my Christmas presents. Well, other than the Ott Light, I didn’t get a lot of knitting related stuff. But I did get some size 0 Addi turbos I needed, the Knitters’ Stash book, and the “knitting stitch a day” perpetual calendar. and my good friend Geane, she of the the SL 2002 FO I blogged about yesterday, gave me a generous gift certificate to Bea Ellis Knitwear which I’m looking forward to using!

I do have a birthday looming on the horizon, so maybe I’ll get more knitting books then.