I actually finished something. And then we had to put it away.

I won't bore you with a mosaic of my finished projects of 2011, mainly because I finished next to nothing. It would be a two-frame mosaic of Henry and that enormous quilt. Maybe some knitting - I can't remember. I'm lucky I know what day it is. (Monday. Right?)

But I did manage to finish something for the holidays. The last stitches were put in on Christmas Eve morning, ready for Santa to fill them:

New stockings! (The dog sleeping in the sun is not new, nor is her stocking. Don't give me any grief about not making her a stocking, because her stocking is 10x more awesome than ours, and it was passed down to her from my childhood golden, Maggie, who was the greatest dog on Earth, godresthersoul.)

Henry and I picked up this fabric at Jo-Ann's back in October. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I went completely off grid with these bad boys, and I'm proud of say that with the exception of initially putting the lining together backwards, everything went pretty smoothly. Justin did have to help me draw the stocking shape because I kept ending up with a letter J. (Side note: file folders make very nice pattern pieces.)

Construction is very basic. I cut two stocking shapes out of leftover batting, then sewed my pieces directly on one at a time. Trimmed to make it pretty, did some decorative machine stitching, then sewed the two outside pieces together. Then I did the embroidery (chain stitch for some dimension and oomph), followed by the lining. And of course I lined them - what do you think we are, hobos?

I love them. And for the first time in history, I'm sad Christmas is over because we had to put them away. I will always remember this Christmas for being the one where we finally had awesome homemade stockings, even though Santa only put chapstick in mine. Neither Henry nor Gracie had anything in theirs, but Justin made out like a bandit. We'll be revisiting our priorities next Christmas.

An extra hour or three would be just fine.

There just aren't enough hours in the day. I sleep more than I used to (building a baby is tiring), and I'm slower at things that used to go quickly - cooking, cleaning, general self-maintenance. All of this slowing down has made a big impact on my crafting, and I'm having trouble finding any time to craft. I'm not really interested in knitting and watching TV at the same time anymore - TV all of a sudden takes all of my attention. So maybe that's why these socks were not finished in a timely manner?

Last summer, I was invited to be a test knitting for Cookie A's new book, Knit. Sock. Love. I was assigned the left sock of the In and Out pattern. So I knit that one in eight days and then for some reason waited months and months to finish the right sock.

It was cold as all get-out this weekend, despite the fact that my mom trekked six hours to help us whip our garden into shape. She was a madwoman, a force to be reckoned with, and I soothed my aching body with these wonderful socks. I love them. They were complicated and sometimes the directions confused me, but the great thing about test knitting is that you get to ask the designer questions! It turns out that I interpreted the directions differently than she meant them to be interpreted, so hopefully I was able to help.

I do enjoy a sock that is foot-specific. I knit these out of Louet Gems Pearl on, well, hmm. I'm not sure what size needles. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say US 1, but it could be 2. I'm going with 1. I have size 11 feet, so I just kept knitting until I reached the appropriate toe length. The ribbing and cables accommodate most sizes very nicely. This is definitely a pattern you have to pay attention to, which might be why it took me weeks to knit the last few inches.

We have our second childbirth class tonight. Frankly, I'd rather stay home and knit; last week's class was essentially, "You have a baby inside of you! He's going to come out!" I hope tonight's class if a little more helpful. If nothing else, I can get some sock knitting done.

Possibly the cutest sweater on Earth

My last custom request of the year (and most likely a long, long time) was for a little boy who loves Yo Gabba Gabba. His mom wanted me to recreate a sweater worn by one of the kids on the show. Not having little ones of my own, I had to do a little research and was soon charmed by the program.

There was some guessing on size, as she didn't have any 3T clothes for him yet, and I don't know any other three year-olds. Thank goodness for the internet and standard clothing sizes. I whipped this pattern up on Sweater Wizard and made the chart with an Excel grid and good old fashioned color pencils.Muno Sweater for Fritz

This was my first real go at intarsia, and I left only a few days to get this done before Christmas. Knitting by Kristin: full of good decisions. The intarsia turned out to be easy, if a little fiddly. Look how neat it is on the inside:

I used Berroco Comfort, which is super soft but also really splitty. (Great price, too.) Weaving in all those ends was a total pain in the ass, and I definitely wouldn't crochet with it. Sharp needles are a must with this yarn. But I think it will wash well, and the red didn't bleed at all (I tested my swatch thoroughly to make sure the little teeth and eyeball wouldn't turn red after the first wash. I think we're safe.).

It's a little bittersweet, but I'm glad to be done knitting for others for awhile. I have a bunch of half-started socks around here, as well as a sweater that really needs to be finished after years of sitting around because I have to resize and rechart it. I've been cleaning the craft room today and man, do I have a lot of yarn, fabric, and fiber. It's time to get to work.

Sock Stash Knitdown 2011

I'm in two stash-busting groups on Ravelry - Stashdown and Stash and Burn. This year, I'm going to focus on burning up all of this sock yarn. It's small in weight but mighty in yardage, and when it comes to yarn shopping, it's my biggest temptation.

I did, however, make a tiny dent in the sock yarn stash with my last socks of 2010.

They're delightful socks for my dad. The pattern is Conwy by Nancy Bush, and the yarn is some of my very old handdyed. I named this colorway Taper, since I knew it would be perfect for my dad and he used to be fond of tapered jeans. (I'm pleased to say that's no longer the case, but one must always be on high alert when it comes to tapered jeans.)

I would definitely use this pattern again, but with similar modifications. You start with 72 stitches and then decrease down to something like 60, but I decreased to just 66. I like my ribbed socks to maintain the ribbed look and not get all stretched out. Also, I'd probably try a different toe - the star toe is a little pointy.

He's becoming quite the foot model, isn't he?

FO: Stars and Hearts

I have a To Do list that's thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssss long, so of course I haven't even started. Welcome to my Wednesday! We are preparing for the last wedding of the year, which will require us to get on an airplane and leave Gracie with friends. I need to pack me, pack the G, do a bunch of work, go to the gym, run errands, fix the strap on my Weekender Bag, blah blah blah. While I'm procrastinating, have a look at this blanket.

It's a blanket! For a baby! A baby blanket! Dear Jo Ann commissioned this for a gift for her daughter's teacher, and I happily complied, mostly because I love Jo Ann and I love blankets. But man, did this thing take awhile. I knit steadily for four weeks on it and still had to refer to the charts on the last row.

You would think the charts were easy, as I initially did when I saw the picture in the pattern book. Just some reverse stockinette, right? Oh no, my friends, oh no. The stars and hearts are made of moss stitch, and if that isn't enough to melt your brain, I don't know what is.

It's lovely, though, isn't it? It's Zoe Mellor's Stars and Hearts pattern, knit out of Ella Rae Amity. It's a nice yarn and held up to some repeated ripping and tinking and washed up very nicely. I have two and a half skeins left over, which I think will eventually become a sweater for someone wee. It's good to have those kinds of things on hand. (More Ravelry details here.)

I have one more commissioned project for the year, and then I think I'll be taking some time off. I love knitting for others (even more so when they pay me), but rarely am I able to use stash yarn for those projects. I have knit exactly 9.58% of my stash from when I started counting in 2008 (which is great, considering I, at one time, had knit -20% of the stash, meaning I increased my stash by 20%), and I know I can get that last 10% down by my birthday. I know I can. Even though my birthday is in January.