It cannot possibly be the end of the year!

Hi all!

I am madly trying to finish up what feels like a billion things so no real post tonight, just a quick one to say:

Happy New Year! Wishing you all love and happiness in 2009!

They'll Turn on You So Fast...

As I mentioned in my last post, it has been quite snowy. Gwen has enthusiastically embraced all the frozen goodness, happily romping in yard and sledding down the street.

Until now. I'm thinking a case of housitosis is setting in:

G: Mommy, is it still cold?

Me: Yup. Still cold and snowy.

G: Mommy... is spring almost here?

Winter Wonderland

There is much knitting here at Chez Sheep: a beep for [censored] for example, but I'm afraid I will have to wait to share those projects with you until the items arrive at their intended destinations.

It has been cold enough here this past week that I have actually had opportunity to wear some of my hand knits- very exciting! And cozy :)

Now I admit that my decade here in Seattle has made me a skeptic, winter weather-wise. I hear the little weather dude earnestly predict snow for our area and I see the local news reporters go through their song & dance, touting the latest "Snowpocalypse" but my brain? It says, "Meh. Not happening. Not a snowball's chance in hell." (If you'll pardon the awful pun.) 99.7% of the time the predictions are wrong. No snow. Or at least not enough to alter my plans in any serious way. At most, we get something like this:

My backyard, earlier in the week.

And, the forecasts were wrong again this weekend. But... this time they were wrong in the opposite direction. Our snowfall was supposed to taper off late last night or earlier today changing to snow showers or freezing rain.

Um..... Not snow much:

This was my back porch almost three hours ago. Our most recent snowfall (the third this week!) is still going strong more than 24 hours after it started. Now some of you who live in hardier climes may scoff that a mere 7"-10" can be a serious Snow Event. But let me remind you that I live in Seattle. A city of many BIG hills, drivers with little to no experience driving in snow (heck, they can't even drive in the rain and it rains all the time) and woefully little snow removal equipment.

Snowpocalypse indeed.

Retrograde

I cannot believe that there are only two and half weeks until Christmas- where has the time gone? I think the late Thanksgiving and the resulting shorter pre-Christmas run up really has my brain flummoxed (love that word- I think we should bring back into regular use, it so precised describes that sort of baffled "what the heck?" feeling I experience so frequently these days).

I think I'm making progress. Gifts have been purchased. Gifts have been made, not all are done but I'm getting there. I am slowly getting the house decorated...

And... my children are slowly un-decorating it for me. My main accomplishment thus far was decorating the tree. Gwen's big accomplishment?

Removing the ornaments.

"But Mama, I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiike holding them."

well. Who can argue with that kind of logic?

sigh

I'm an Auntie!!

Yesterday my sister in law (hubby's brother's wife) gave birth to a beautiful little boy making me an aunt for the first time (I'm not posting a photo because I don't know how they'd feel about it).

Guess I'd better buckle down and finish up the knitted gifts... I'm working on the trio from the original Mason-Dixon Knitting




Baby Bib o' Love, still needs a button...



Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono. I'm now considerably further along than this, the back & left sleeve are completed and I have about ten more rows to go on the left side.



The Baby Genius Burp Cloth - done. Thank goodness something is done.

If you are wondering about the massive quantities of yellow for a baby boy I'd like to point out that the sex of the little one was a surprise until yesterday. This is actually why I am still knitting at this late date (no, it was just my natural tendency to procrastinate this time). I was all excited to knit cute little boy or girl things- had lists of them in my mind- but then my brother-in-law told us they weren't going to find out what they were having.

Plbbbbbbbbbbt.

All the air left my balloon of baby knitting happiness. I just couldn't get excited to knit unisex baby things. No idea why. It was terribly irrational. But then a week ago I realized that the due date was RAPIDLY approaching and some knitting must be done, so here you have it. Hopefully I'll have it all finished it the next couple days...

PS. I know. Two posts in a week. Try not to faint.

December?

Um, what happened to November? I swear I was just dressing the kiddos up in Halloween costumes yesterday.

I hope you all had scrumptious Thanksgiving dinners and survived the madness that was our retail establishments this past weekend. For our part we had a quiet turkey dinner at home with all the fixins'...



...and pie of course!



And we limited our post-Thanksgiving shopping to getting a Christmas tree so we have nary a stubbed toe to show for the Black Friday craziness.

I have been knitting up a storm recently but many of the items will be winging their way to rest beneath Christmas trees so I cannot share them here yet.

So instead I'll share one of my favorite projects from this past year that I haven't shown you here yet.

Pattern: Faberge Cowl by Nina Machlin Dayton (pattern available on Ravelry)

Yarn: Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Vetiver

Needles: Size 7 Addi Turbos (20" I think, maybe 16")

Beads: Size 6/0 Japanese Seed Beads

I knit this as a test knit for Nina and I love it. The beads add just the right touch (they are place with a crochet hook instead of pre-stringing the beads). This is a fantastic pattern: clear instructions, a fun, interesting knit, and beautiful result.