Sairy’s Neighborhood

At Wednesday night's Very Special BobaKnit (where we did end up talking about female issues but not on purpose!) I finished my final FO of 2009, the Linoleum Dishcloth by Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting. Instead of using two colors for the contrast, I used a multi-colored colorway of Sugar n' Cream. I think it came out nicely. (Ravelry link to my project.)

I particularly like the subtlety of the diamond pattern and it feels like it will be nicely scrubby as well. I see more of these in my future. It may replace the ball band dishcloth as my favorite. I use my dishcloths as facial washcloths, actually, so I like them to be a little on the scrubby side, but just a little.

I also made a mosaic for my finished objects from 2009. I "only" had 39 pictures this year instead of 51 like last year. I'm not sure what happened there. More sweaters? Fewer dishcloths? Probably the latter, although you'd think all my tiny crochet would have helped. Ah well, it's not a competition, right?

FOs 2009 Mosaic

FOs 2009 Mosaic

Sometime in the fall Stefan and I were at Purlescence and he picked out two colors of Cascade Cotton Club, a cotton/acrylic blend that I think is very similar to my beloved All Seasons Cotton. In fact the blue/grey he picked out is almost the same color as my Manon. His request for the yarn was a "spiky" hat. The red was supposed to be the spikes. I looked around on Ravelry for a while, trying to find just the right hat and finally settled on Chullosauro (Ravelry link to my project - sorry I have been neglecting to add these). I think it fits the bill, don't you?

spiky

It is supposed to be a chullo hat, with ear flaps, but I didn't have enough of the blue yarn. Also, the pattern didn't have the spikes in it so I improvised a bit. I think it's okay but not great. Maybe the designer will get back to me on Ravelry and tell me how she made hers.

This second picture is a bit out of focus but captures Stefan's smile so perfectly that I had to upload it too.

stegosaurus hat

I know I"m biased, but isn't he a cutie?

Mom's legwarmers were delivered on Christmas. I was a little nervous about how well they'll stay up. We'll see how it goes!

mom's legwarmers

I finally got a photograph of the snail outside his home. He's dirty now because he was taken to the park one day.

niels' snail

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I then made a butterfly in a strawberry for Stefan. Again, too stinkin' cute for words.

peeking butterfly

For some reason I don't want to work on big projects. I go through this at times. I usually end up knitting dish cloths but this time it's amigurumi that have caught my obsession attention. I was going to make another snowman but instead I decided to make a snail in a pear from a pattern called Little Toys and Their Homes. Niels had asked for it and I started and gave up on a seahorse and robot (the yarn wasn't right in both cases) for him after make a turtle and a seahorse for Stefan. So, here's the snail in his home, the S.S. Leaf (according to Niels).

peek-a-boo!

Isn't he too stinking cute for words?

I just realized that I need a picture of the snail out of the pear. I'll get that tomorrow as Niels is currently sleeping with the snail.

I've also been thinking a lot about my living room. (I know, exciting!) We had a Hannukah party this weekend and it got me moving to get the living room, dining room and kitchen into much better shape. Big parties will do that. I'm still not entirely satisified with the state of the living room, though. I would like to replace the giant white Ikea monstrosity that surrounds our TV.

playroom corner

You can only see part of it here. There is another of the four-cube pieces to the right of the TV as well. It is useful in that it has a lot of drawers and closets, however as you can see from the state of the pieces on the far left, the drawers and doors have broken off a few of them. I wanted to get the TV stand that goes with our new bookcase in the corner but I don't think it is big enough for the size TV we want to get. Our couch is a fair distance from the TV and the flat TVs are wider so we'd need something bigger. Erik and I are still discussing. Anyway, here's a couple more photos.

I occasionally consider putting the kid's play/train table in their room but I think it would take up too much of the room, so I'm not sure what to do. I have to say this: the room is much nicer when everything is put away. The new bookcase really helps with that.

I gave the boys' teachers their gifts today, so now I can show them to you.

snowmen for the teachers

Aren't they too stinkin' cute for words? They came from one of my favorite amigurumi designers on etsy. She also designed the bear in the balloon and the robot I made earlier in the summer. They were ornaments and I took the photo before I put the yarn in their heads (aw) to finish them off. The kids wanted some too, so I made Niels another snowman.

niels snowman

Stefan got a Christmas tree.

amigurumi tree ornament

I didn't have the right sized eyes left, so we got those little jingle bells to make ornaments instead. Stefan was excited about it. As you can probably tell, we decorated our tree today. Niels insisted that the tree and snowman should be next to each other. Our little fake tree isn't very big but it was decorated with enthusiasm.

our tiny tree

Erik used the extra big tree lights to decorate the rest of the room a bit.

Erik decided to decorate more

I guess filling that top shelf will have to wait until after Christmas is over. I don't mind, though. I have lots of other things to do in the meanwhile!

Well, with some very helpful advice from our pediatrician, and a multi-fronted, concerted effort by Getalife and myself, it looks like we've been able to take a significant edge off the colic. Here's what we've done so far:

My gift projects are progressing. The leg warmers are done but need the ends woven in. I think they're nice. I hope they work. I'm also working on a few small crochet gift projects. After Friday I will be able to post about them. They're nice, though, trust me.

I warped the Beka looms again but am sparing you the photos. The nice thing about having them done is that I was able to return my friend Victoria's warping mill which did make the warping much much easier but took up a significant chunk of space in the living room. I am also looking forward to not having warped and unwarped looms hanging around. They were a challenge to store. I hope to cut the projects off tomorrow at the end of class and leave the Beka looms in our storage space at school. My Cricket will, of course, come home. I would like to warp it and let Stefan and Niels give it a try over break. I always have lots of plans for break, though, and not much ends up getting done.

Speaking of my living room (in the middle of that last paragraph) I have had an ongoing living room project for about a week. It's making serious progress though. We had a fireplace stove thing in the corner of the living room which I originally considered replacing with a gas stove. The cost of running the gas line was a barrier and then our kitchen remodel was so traumatic that it turned me off from home improvement projects involving workmen for a while. In the meantime I decided that I didn't want a hot metal object in the corner of the living room and decided to just have it taken out. I finally got it together to get someone to come and do that last week.

I knew I would want to cover the tile but the ring of rust and the fact that the tiles under the stove were a totally different color confirmed it. I ordered some Flor tiles (from the outlet, actually) and they came yesterday. Erik put them in which required a lot of kneeling on the hard floor to trim them. Yay Erik.

flor tiles

When my parents were here over the weekend Erik and rushed off to Ikea for the fastest, most efficient trip to Ikea in history for an Expedit bookcase. In. Out. Boom. There was a small moment of panic when Victoria asked me the next day what color I got and I realized that I hadn't checked that on the box. Luckily, the bookcase I had used to get the bin location was the same color as the one I wanted. I'm pretty sure they divide them that way. Or I got lucky. Anyway, it was light birch.

erik and niels assemble the expedit

Niels was very excited to be involved in the process and helped Erik by using his new LEGO Power MIners claw car to deliver the bolts and such that Erik needed.

niels is excited

He stayed up for the whole process. Oops, that wasn't my intention. He was pleased, though. After he finally went to sleep, I started filling it.

filing the expedit

Saviano in Knitty, find more Flickr here! Yarnissima.

Thank you test knitters, for your help!

Start: January 25, 2009
Finish: June 5, 2009
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Heavyweight, 100% superwash merino; 350 yd/ 320 m per 7 oz / 198 g skein; color: ‘Brick’
Needles: 3.25 mm - 80 cm KnitPro Nickel
Pattern: SAVIANO - Winter Knitty