We came back and made the trek to Mt. Hood to pluck our tree out of the wilderness. It was a gorgeous day and our tree actually looks pretty good in the house despite a crooked trunk and a giant bald spot. I like that it looks like a forest tree and not a manicured farm tree.

I took a quick break from the insane amounts of sewing I’ve been doing for my etsy shop and finally discovered the joy of knitting bulky items on big needles. I’m normally a fine gauge knitter but when you’re short on time, there’s nothing better than knitting a hat in a day! This is the Unoriginal Hat by the Yarn Harlot. You don’t really need a link do you? Just google it if you’d like. The yarn is Cascade Pastaza doubled and while it feels really soft in the skein, it’s a little prickly on my head if I wear it for a long time.

We went on a walk a few days ago and I loved that the whole family was wearing hats knit by me!


My mom visited last weekend, braving the snow and Crafty Wonderland’s Super Colossal Holiday Sale like a real Portlander. Because of the nasty weather, not as many people came to the show as I’d hoped but I still managed to make a little money.

Now to start on those Christmas presents!

So, I took another picture. This is a different day and it was really cold and windy and I just wanted to hurry up and get the picture taken. That’s why I have a stupid look on my face. But you can see the buttons on the side. When I knitted the sweater, I didn’t think about having to sew on 14 buttons. 14! I hate sewing buttons but I managed to get it done. I also knit Mike a new hat since he claimed his grey one doesn’t match his brown coat. Apparently green is a much more fashionable choice. He wanted a tank on it so that’s what he got. It’s made with a mystery alpaca yarn. I lost the label. If you need to know, I can probably figure it out but you probably don’t care that much. He likes it and now he doesn’t have to be a walking fashion faux pas with his grey hat and brown clothes. I also knit a cardigan for sesame. Well, it started out as a cardigan for my coworkers baby. Her shower is in a few days. I kept thinking of things to add to the cardigan to make it cuter and tonight I realized I needed to keep it. I’m not really that close to this particular coworker and it just seemed too nice to give her. It would have felt awkward to give someone I don’t know very well this little cardigan that clearly took a lot of time and effort to make. So sesame gets it! Since I do need a gift, I’m going to part with the Miss Dashwood I knit for sesame. I have another skein of that yarn so I can knit another for sesame.

I used Bernat cotton tots and followed the pattern for the kimono cardigan in the summer 2005 issue of IK. The Ik cardigan is in garter stitch but I don’t really like knitting garter stitch so I altered it for stockinette. To keep the edges from rolling, I sewed satiny blanket binding to the inside edges. It’ll be soft against little baby’s skin.
Last but not least, little sesame will need socks- cute socks! This pattern was also in the summer 2005 Ik but several similar baby socks are free online at Interweave Knit’s website. These are with Wildfoote sock yarn and I used size 0 needles. Before I knit them, I thought these might become my baby shower gift of choice (I have 3 pregnant coworkers!) but that won’t be the case. I realized I don’t like using size 0 dpns, and I like cabling using size 0 dpns even less. It sure made for some cute little socks, though!