Joy to the world, the socks are done!

Santa who sits on the porch is just visiting. He really belongs to Great Gran.

And Great Gran’s yarn finally made it here! So in a coordinated effort to get them all finished, I am making the one for my mom’s friend. I can’t show you the scarves that Great Gran is working on because they are presents for folks who read my blog on occasion. I’ve said too much already…

Now I am off to work on this year’s Christmas Ornaments. I only have a small window of Productive Time when Betty is having her afternoon nap. She likes to help. Hot glue is not good for kitties.

I am entering the Christmas Sock Home Stretch!

I wonder if you get presents if your stocking has no toe.

Visions of the next project are filling my head!

Great Gran’s scarf yarn STILL isn’t here. My next project may be scarves to help get them finished in time. Incidentally: when you call JoAnn.com’s Customer Service People and they say, “I’ll have to check on that. I’ll take your phone number and call you back with the answer.” They are LYING. Where’s the yarn, Lady? Where is it?! Get it in the mail, it’s already PAID FOR. I’ll call back YOU! Grumble grumble.

In spite of Great Gran borrowing the sock this morning to show her friends (She is trying to get them interested in knitting socks – so far they just do scarves. Hence Great Gran’s scarf fever. With that much novelty yarn in one room, who wouldn’t catch it?), I’ve finished Christmas Sock Number 1.

And the crowd goes wild!

But we all know that one sock is only half the battle. With one sock all you have is a sock puppet.

While a sock puppet could be a Christmas present for a six year old who wants to learn ventriloquism, it is not a very good present for a Granny. This makes Christmas Sock Number 2 a MUST.

Great Gran’s ribbon yarn still isn’t here. She says she can finish the second sleeve of the Gatsby Cardigan tonight. I’ll should be able to steam and seam it up tomorrow. Then she gets to make the band which goes aaaaaall the way around. I’m serious. You start at the shoulder and pick up down the front around the bottom up the front around the neck and back to the shoulder. It’ll take half an hour to knit one round! No wonder she’s wishing for the ribbon yarn.

In order to avoid another situation like the Great Graduation Socks Debacle, I am not allowed to start another project until Michael’s Granny’s Christmas Socks are finished. So you’ll be seeing them a lot. A LOT a lot.

Only four inches, a toe and a whole entire other sock to go!

Mom won’t send me a picture of her First Sweater. She has this fancy, new camera (that she bought to take pictures of her cat) but she doesn’t seem to want to use it. She’s been telling me for the longest time that she wants to rip out because her sweater is bumpy on the back. I ask if it looks good on the front. She says, “Oh, yes.” I say, “Stockinette is supposed to be bumpy on the back. And nobody sees the back anyway. It’s inside the sweater.” Now she says she has an Actual Mistake and wants to rip back. I say, “It’s in stockinette in Big Fat Yarn. How much of a mistake could it be?” Have I mentioned that my Mom is a little bit of a perfectionist?

Great Gran (scarf fever) is waiting for a delivery of ribbon yarn from JoAnn.com. A package for her was delivered to my house¹ on Firday. But that turned out to be a box of Fun Fur for a lady in Michigan. They reshipped Great Gran’s yarn on Monday (I assume they reshippe the Michigan Lady’s yarn too). This has forced her to work on her Gatsby Cardigan. Except she isn’t working on it because she is reading instead. I keep telling her to hurry up with the cardi so that I can seam it² and she can take it with her when everyone goes skiing³ after Christmas. It looks like she would rather read.

I did manage to take a non-blurry picture of the Christmas Tree.

Twinkly!

And I also got a slightly crooked⁴ shot of the house at night. This trees make me think of the Corona comercial where the one palm tree is lit up. Those pines are WAY too tall for me to get lights up in them. Maybe I could make friends with somebody who owns a helicopter by next Chrismas…and buy a freakishy long extension cord.

¹Our UPS guy brings Great Gran’s orders to my house because I live in town. She lives out of town (it’s about an eight minute drive). I think it’s funny.

²Great Gran doesn’t seam anymore. She says that’s the real reason she taught me to knit: so someone else could seam her sweaters and graft her toes. It’s not that she can’t seam (she did up all of my Great Gran-mother’s things for her), she just doesn’t like to.

³Everyone but us. We get to stay home and babysit the critters (Gracie and Dinah are coming to visit. Betty loves it when her cousins come over). The best vacation for us is staying home. WooHOO! Nowhere to go!

⁴Better slightly crooked than slightly blurry.

Yarn Miracle: Special Sunday Edition

It’s the kind of day that makes you wish it weren’t Sunday so you could go back to bed instead of to Sunday School. But you leap out of bed in spite of the rain because you get to wear your new Vintage Sweater!

You can also get a good look at the Swamp we call Our Yard. Welcome to Winter in the South.

I’ve also got a closer picture where you can see the mock cables on the sleeves a little better. The pattern doesn’t have buttons, but I opted to place a clasp at the neck. I question whether I should have sewn it on with the same yarn…but I can always change it later.

In Christmas Knitting:
I had just turned the heel on the Waving Lace Socks when it occurred to me to try them on. They fit me perfectly. Which meant there was No Way Granny Tomlin could ever get them on. At first I thought, “Well, she’s not gonna wear them anyway, so what difference does it make?” But that made me feel guilty so I     frogged     the     entire     leg. Arugh. I’ve started over on needles that are one size larger. If this doesn’t work, well, the socks can always live in the box with the afghan.

They were prettier on turquoise needles.

Coming Soon:
Woman catches Scarf Fever. Great Gran vows, “I WILL be finished with these by Christmas.”