Is it really so wrong that all I want to do on New Year's Eve is just stay home?

I am not, and never have been, a party person. And come to think of it, what's the big deal about New Year's anyway? Yes, yes, reflection on the past year, anticipation of the new. Blah blah blah. I can do that at home, without being in a noisy crowded room.

We have an invitation to a party at a fancy expensive restaurant, from one of Shaun's fellow professors, and an invite to a party at my boss's house, which I really should attend.

I'm having a grumpy day.

On the bright side, though, I made 1 1/2 pairs of fingerless mitts yesterday.



This is the blue pair that, along with the green pair, was a commission from a coworker. This pair is slightly larger, since they're for a man. I upped the stitch count to 40 instead of 36, made the thumb two stitches bigger, and made the cuffs and palms a couple rows longer. I also started another pair in the woman's size from the rest of this skein, and will finish the second mitt tonight. This second blue pair will be going in my shop.

When I was delivering the green and blue mitts today, the friend who received the original blue-purple pair saw the green ones and immediately requested a pair to keep at home, so I'll be making those tomorrow.

I'm going to go to the gym and work out now, and hopefully become less grumpy before all these parties.

One of Emma's Christmas presents was a little doll cradle I found at a garage sale, that came with just a foam mattress. All dolls, of course, also need a pillow and a blanket, but a headcold and work prevented me from making those before Christmas. So I made the pillow on Christmas day, and the 26th, I made a little quilt.



This was sort of a bittersweet project. Dad was here for Christmas, and he brought me boxes and boxes and boxes, containing Mom's fabric and craft stash. When Emma and I were in Maine last March, I spent several days sorting fabric and sewing supplies and scrapbooking stash, deciding what I wanted to keep. Basically, I cleaned out her craft room for him. It was hard enough for me to do this, but Dad had trouble even being in the room.

When I was in Maine in August 2004, the summer before Mom died, we started planning a quilt for Emma that we would make together the following summer. That quilt was never made, but when I was cleaning her craft room this year, I found the stack of fabric that we had tentatively pulled together as an idea for the quilt. Purples, blues, and greens were the colors, but we never got as far as deciding on a block pattern.

Back to the present. Emma chose all the fabrics for her doll quilt herself (with supervision), from one of the boxes I brought in for her to rummage through. Three of the fabrics that she chose were from that stack of fabric for the quilt-that-never-was. I'd like to think that Mom would approve.

Another pair of fingerless mitts, this time a commission! The blue/purple pair I made for my co-worker went over really well, and she went around the office showing them off to people. One of the other women liked them so much that she asked if she could pay me to make pairs for her and her boyfriend; green for her, blue for him. Of course I said yes, so here's the first pair:



The yarn for the second pair is being dyed as I write, and will be knit this weekend. The green yarn is actually the darker green skein I dyed in October, overdyed to darken it up a bit and get some tonal variation. I really like the way it came out. When its knitted, it looks like green marble.

I also finished some mittens for me, using the leftover skein from making the original blue/purple fingerless mitts. I was a little worried that I would run out of yarn, but I actually had a bit left over.



They photographed a too little dark. The picture with the mitt pattern (in my sidebar) and other blog post linked above is a better representation of the color.

Sometimes the best-laid Mom Plots don't work out exactly as planned. Emma got a princess tea set for Christmas, and has been incessantly bugging me to let her have a "real" tea party with it, with mint tea. The one attempt at having a tea party complete with water ended up with puddles all over the coffee table, so I wasn't too keen to let her have mint tea. Water tea parties are fine, outside in the summer. Inside, not so much.

Finally, as a compromise (read: driven to distraction, pulling my hair out, PLEASE STOP WHINING) I told her that when the weather warms up, I will make her mint tea and put it in her teapot so she can serve all her invisible princess friends tea at an outdoor tea party. I figured that would be the end of that.

Five minutes later, as I was checking the dyepot on the stove, I heard the clop-clop-clop of size 10 girl's boots on the floor. I turned around and there she is, dressed in snowpants, boots, coat, hat, and mittens.

"Cinderella and I are ready for our tea party, Mommy. Is the tea hot yet?"

I knew when I was beaten, and gracefully capitulated.



It was about 5:00pm, completely dark out, 27˚F, howling wind, and blowing snow. She sat on the back step, poured her mint tea, talked to her invisible princesses, broke icicles off the gas grill to stir the tea and cool it down (?!), and generally had a wonderful time.

She finally came in after about 45 minutes, rosy-cheeked and happy.



Parenthood is a wonderful, mysterious learning experience. Tea parties in the snow. Who knew.

Will I have enough time? Will I have enough yarn? The perennial questions of a knitter on a deadline using the remnants of a skein of handdyed yarn.



I started this Branching Out scarf Wednesday night, at about 9:00 pm, after seeing Kris's. I've been aware of this pattern since it was published two and a half years ago, yet it was suddenly imperative that I cast on immediately and make another Christmas present. I used the leftover partial skein from the Calorimetry I made last week, because 1) it was on the table next to my chair, and 2) it looked like there might be enough yarn in the ball to make a scarf. It was initially to be for Emma's preschool teacher, but I gave it to a coworker instead of the Calorimetry since I finished it in time for office giving. I'll either make another scarf for Emma's teacher, or give her the Calorimetry. I wasn't planning on delivering that gift until Monday, so there's plenty of time. (Notice how time becomes relative in December.)

This scarf used 55 grams of the Knitpick Bare merino DK that I dyed sky blue, and US 7 needles. It's on the short side for a scarf, only 20 repeats of the pattern, but is still long enough to keep a neck cozy. Have I mentioned how much I like this yarn? Takes dye beautifully, lovely to knit with, and makes a very squishy soft fabric.



I blocked fairly aggressively, to maximize the length, and it ended up 45" x 6.75". In the event of yarn shortage, I did have a backup plan to put the blue only on the ends, with a white unpatterned section in the middle, but when I reached the halfway point in the ball of yarn it looked like I was going to squeak by with enough length so I kept going.



You can't beat a knitted lace gift from two shortish evenings of knitting.

An update on The Panda Cory Show:



I have 9 mostly-grown-up babies now, bringing my total to twelve. I haven't collected and hatched any eggs in a while, and I think I'm going to take a break for now. I was getting tired of the daily water changes for the fry, and I've got too much else going on at the moment. Plus, I'm out of tank room.

These guys are so personable and active. I just love watching them trundle around the tank in a group, nosing through the gravel.

It's just Emma and me holding down the fort this weekend. Shaun had to go up to Friday Harbor to do some work at the Lab, and Emma and I stayed home to supposedly clean the house a bit in preparation for my dad's arrival next weekend.

So how has my weekend of cleaning been going? Well, I did absolutely nothing last night. I sat in front of the TV and knit on a mitten until 9:30, at which time I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and had to go to bed.

Today (Saturday) was to have been my big cleaning blitz day, so that I could relax and enjoy Sunday. How did that work out? Hmm, not so much. Emma and I spent the entire morning in our PJs, cuddled in a blanket, watching Noggin cartoons and eating sunflower and pumpkin seeds for breakfast. How decadent. I did make a batch of Julekage (a sweet cardamom-y Scandinavian christmas bread with candied fruit, raisins, and almonds) this afternoon, though. One loaf went in the freezer for Christmas morning, and I fully expect the other to be gone by tomorrow night. Yum.

After the bread came out of the oven, I decided that we needed to get out. We ran out of canned dog food last Thursday, and I forgot to get more before Shaun left yesterday. But Emma and I needed some exercise, and poor Cobalt was very hungry. She chose not to eat at all yesterday since all I had to offer was dry kibble. So Emma and I bundled up, ventured out into the 29˚F snow flurries, and {gasp} walked to the grocery store.

Is this really so unusual? It's only 3/4 mile from our house to the store, and twice on our way there and once on the way back people stopped their cars and asked if we needed help. Now this was nice of them, and if I had been in trouble or something I'm sure I would have been very grateful. But they seemed so astonished that we were just walking to the grocery store.

I brought a backpack to carry the dogfood and assorted other things back, Emma and I were both wearing wool hats and mittens, good coats, and were quite comfortable. I was, anyway, and Emma never complained so I assume she was too. It wasn't as fast as just hopping in the car (which is what I'm sure I would have done had the car been available), but it was a nice walk and Emma and I had a really great conversation. We talked about Christmas lights, why the moon gets bigger and smaller, why you don't talk to strangers, how books are made, why we have day time and night time, why snowflakes have six sides, why bubbles are round and not square, and how girls are different than boys. All topics addressed in response to questions that she asked. Quite a grown up conversation for a four-year-old.

I'm glad the car wasn't available so I didn't miss out on that conversation. GLAD.