What was I thinking?!

I have decided for various reasons (shhh, mittenfarce!) against knitting gifts for teachers this year and I thought I was home free, no big deadlines, no frantic late night knitting...and then I remembered...the Christmas stockings!
C#1 and C#2 have some very ratty and moth eaten stockings that were inherited from my husband D. and his twin brother T. Well, last year after some of the contents were spilling out the moth holes I asked if they would like new stockings. Grandma usually knits the stockings, but if she was busy I could knit them. Then they saw these. (Okay, okay, it's not like they were trolling the internet looking for some fancy shmancy stockings for me to knit, I showed them a photo. I know, I know, what was I thinking? But it was a long time ago! Spring? I think. Okay, whatever!)
Well, Grandma is quite a good knitter, but I don't think she's in the mood to tackle Norwegian knitting. There go my leisure knitting plans (right...like that ever really happens).

Then there is the other Poetry mitten for T.
I was thinking of felted clogs for T's family in Japan, then 4 more pairs for the K family in Japan, and then digging through my stash to find the long forgotten stocking pattern I came across many other "forgotten" projects.
What? What mohair sweater?
Wish me luck and tell me to get off the computer because I have a lot of knitting to do...after I make C#1's Halloween costume. What! It's only the 28th!

Chemo caps

I have been making a few chemo caps this year, and I'm finding them very rewarding projects. They're small, which makes for quick knitting, yet not mindless and can be quite complex.
More importantly, is that the recipients know that I made each and every one of those stitches with them in mind, and my hope that one day soon they'll be able to stick those hats in a drawer and not need them again. I'm sure this sentiment has been expressed on a million blogs by now, but humor me, and understand that I am being quite sincere.

I don't think the camera is charged yet, so I'll post photos (multiple bad ones at that) tomorrow, maybe.



Oh, look another crummy photo of the reluctant model. More wonky knitting, too.

Today

Thought I'd show you what I was involved in today. Fujima Ryu of Chicago had their annual recital and I helped (and ate Japanese food back stage). Of course I don't have a complete set of photos, and these photos were from the summer...okay, whatever. Here's what I've got and it's the same stuff and it's a blog post, so there.



Here are some of the wigs. As beautiful as they are they hurt like h*ll sometimes. They are made of human hair on a metal base and the wig making process is rather secretive.



Prepping for the white make-up. You have to apply a layer of a special wax in order to have an even coat of white, if you miss a spot the white gets blotchy and soaks in - then you have to start all over again. Not fun. White boogers for a couple of days. Ew.



Fujima Sensei getting the kimono ready. The dance kimono can be quite heavy and have many layers.

That's all I've got....

Turn a Square Already!

Turn a Square by Jared Flood.

An excellent pattern, a simple hat out of some soft yarn. I made it for L. I had to rip this sucker out at least 3 times. Gauge problems, misreading the pattern, and general carelessness. It looks wonky here but it's really not. Now it's done, washed, blocked and modeled by C#1 (it's too big for him). None of the photos are that great, but there are 3 of them since I couldn't decide which one was the best and C#1 was tired of modeling since there were games awaiting him on the computer.











That's all folks.