Christmas Knitting

Now that everyone has received their Christmas presents, I can show you all what I've been making for the last few months.

First, my dad's scarf (with Jason as model)
This is garter stitch, so it was simple, but I used small needles so it was fairly time intensive.
I think it turned out really nice, and he loves it.

My mom's roll-brim hat
and handwarmers (both made from organic cotton)
I crocheted my mom's handwarmers first, and was actually pleased with my shaping skills, but, like a lot of crochet, it was really stiff. I knew her arthritic hands would not like that. So I tore them out and knit them instead. They wound up being very soft and stretchy - perfect for her.

I also made handwarmers for my sister-in-law Sarah. My brother-in-law confirmed for me that she is, in fact, one of those girls whose hands are always cold.
I also made a scarf for my mother-in-law, but finished it on the plane so I don't have a picture yet.

Hats for my father-in-law

Brandon (BIL)

Taylor (BIL)

and Marissa (SIL)
Now I'm finally making my handwarmers that I've been planning to make since June or so, being a girl of the cold-handed variety myself.

Cold

Anyone want to take a guess what this is?




Answer coming...





So, all of our windows except one are new and double-paned. The giant window in our dining room, alas, is single-paned. I love that window because it lets in so much light and allows me to grow herbs and (sometimes) tomatoes in the dining room.

However, some wintry mornings, it looks like this:
That's a thin layer of ice coating the INSIDE of the window. I could scrape ice shavings off with my fingernails.

When we open the windows in the Spring and the Summer, they lose their seals with the window panes. Every Winter, Jason pushes all the windows closed on the top and bottom and locks them to keep the majority of the cold air out. Well, the past couple of days have been pretty cold, and we haven't sealed up all the windows yet. According to our thermometer, this morning it was 15 degrees outside...

...and 49 degrees in the living room.*

Yeah, I think it's time to seal those windows.

The good news is, by the time I left for work, the sun beating on the window had melted the ice. Tiny was having a good time chasing the rivulets of water.

*We don't really use the furnace unless we happen to be home for the majority of a very cold weekend. There are multiple reasons. 1) The furnace is extremely inefficient and expensive. 2) If we turn on the furnace when we get home from work, the apartment will JUST be starting to kind of get warmish right as we're going to bed. 3) Even when the furnace is on the heat feels really nice when you stand right in front of the vent, but when you move more than 3 or 4 feet away from a vent, the cold takes over. Space heaters are our friends.

Head

I've discovered that I like knitting hats. Over on Ravelry, I noticed that a bunch of the other hat knitters had these styrofoam heads to model their hats. I thought that was a quite an investment into the hat-making endeavor, and also had no idea where one would get a head. So I've been using roughly head-size balloons to block my hats.

Saturday I discovered that if you need a styrofoam head, you go to Savers, where they have a huge display of heads. For $4 each.

Everyone, meet Bronwyn:
Here she is modeling one of my recent creations:

Providence

Look who I just saw when I went out to grab a sandwich



Ah, Providence.

Shameless

This is a blog post to get an extra entry into this knitting needle giveaway from favecrafts.com. Because, frankly, I need another set of knitting needles, but have a feeling Jason will flip out if I buy more. See, I'm knitting a bag and it's too small for the 32" circulars and too big for the 16" circulars. Right now it's on the 16" ones and it's cramped and tight and no fun to work on at all. Ideally, I need a set of 24" needles (and I can get 15 sets of needles for $20 from my favorite ebay seller, but, as mentioned above, Jason may have a heart attack if I buy more), but I think 29" might work. Also, they come in a travel case. Ooooooo.

Anywho, I'm entering the needle giveaway. Please don't enter so I can win. K thx.

Beware the Nigerian Landlord Scam

Jason emailed me this great apartment posting on Craig's List right in our neighborhood. When I inquired, I received this bizarre email asking a ton of personal questions from someone claiming to be doing humanitarian work in Africa and stating that we could not see the inside of the apartment. But once he received our deposit we would get the keys and lease Fed Exed to us. To which I said, I don't think so.

Then today I read this article.

Just wanted to make everyone aware since they're apparently all over Craig's List.