Created By Artsygal

I hope everyone's had a wonderful christmas! It's been a pretty good one here, spent with great friends. And lots of pie. You won't believe the amount of pie I've eaten in the last 2 days. I should have taken pictures!

Couple of pics to share tonight. Almost every spinner here will recognize this gift...

I got a new golding spindle to add to my collection! This came from my friend Jon.. who I made that Flying Spaghetti Monster for. I'd say he did good!

Tonight we went out to look at Christmas lights. thanks to the internet (isn't it a wonderful thing?) we found out about Decon Daves and had to go see it. Oh my word!

That's just the trees visible from the front of the property. There was a walking tour to see the rest of the lights so we passed on that. But from what we could see it was pretty amazing!

As for the title of this post... yes, I made it posting every single day from Nov 1st to Christmas! I still can't believe I did that since prior to that I think my record was about 3 consecutive days! I won't lie and say it was easy because it wasn't. but at the same time it wasn't a hard as I thought it would be! Will I continue posting every day from now on? Highly unlikely.. but I think I've gotten into the habit of posting at night before bed, and will probably continue to do so regularly!

So.. today's the last day for comments to enter my yarn give away. Tomorrow I'll pick a couple of winners and post who they are! I've had so much fun reading all your comments, so I hope you all will stick around even after the giveaway is over. Besides, you never know when I might decide to give away some more!

Have YOU been touched by his noodley appendage?

All the parts came together and this guy appeared under the christmas tree tonight while we were out to dinner. The response to it was priceless, I tell you!

(For those of you who aren't in the know.. please visit the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

What happens when you fritter the evening away on ravelry? Nothing that was planned to be finished gets done, but I have found myself a new project to be obsessed with. I've been toying with the idea of a Lizard Ridge for a while now.. made in my own stripey yarn of course! But then I saw this one...

Doesn't it look like slices of stones? I think I've been converted to this instead now! I have to hurry up and finish my mermaid jacket so I can start on this next! I need a new blanket for my bed.. though at the rate I knit, I have a feeling it won't be till next winter before I'm done with this!

All that's missing in that photo is the kitty perched underneath it LICKING one of the lights. Yup, she likes to do that atleast once each night.

What this means for all you lovely blog readers though, is that time is running out in my free yarn give away! If you're new the the blog and haven't heard about it yet - I pledged on Nov 1st to blog every single day for atleast a month. Longer, if I can manage it. And to make it fun, I'd give away free yarn to one lucky person amongst those who have been leaving comments on my posts. And each comment you leave counts as an additional entry (only one per person per post please.. but comment every day if you like!) And if I made it all the way to christmas without missing a day, I'd double the stakes. We're getting mighty close to the 25th, so if I can just hang in there with the daily posts for another week, TWO people will be getting free yarn from me! So keep those comments coming, I'm having a great time reading them, and that's encouraging me to keep up the daily posts!

PS.. I just reskeined a whole LOT of laceweight yarn today. Look here and in the shop tomorrow for pictures!

Ever since I discovered the various knitting sites and blogs out there I've been hearing about Malabrigo. I've touched it at yarn shops and thought it nice and soft, but never completely understood the obsession many have with it.

Lets just say that I now understand. And why, yes, I am casting on something new. And no, I have not finished any of the many projects that are currently on the needles. But this is a quick hat.. half a skein of malabrigo, just about 100 yards. I can get this done before christmas, right?

Since this is my first winter in California, I'm still gtting used to what that is made up of weather wise. And we got all kinds of stuff on our 3 hour drive home today.

First there as the dark ominous looking clouds.

Someone somewhere was getting a heck of a lot of rain!

Where there's that much rain, followed by lots of sunshine, there tends to be a rainbow.

Think there's a pot of gold in that house? Not 20 minutes later, it was raining again.. and then the hail started to fall.

Just enough hail to slow us down for about 5 minutes, make the ride a bit exciting and give us something to be bemused about. It lasted all of 5 minutes, and then the sun came out again. We did spot on more mighty strange looking cloud though.

You can't really tell, but that one cloud that looks like it's had the bottom sliced off was actually quite brown. Everything else around it was grey, and there was this one brown cloud. Very strange.

Knitting wise, I didn't get a whole lot done on the ride. The fact that I had my mermaid jacket with me, and my notes, my printout, and my pattern all said different things about the section I was on may have contributed to this. But I'm back on track now and am starting to see the end of the road on this piece. After this I'm going to make something wonderfully complicated in pattern/lace/texture, but with absolutely SIMPLE shaping. The polar opposite of this pattern!

This has been extremely productive for me, knittingwise. On Friday, I knit yards and yards of icord. On Saturday, I finished up a mitten, and today, I've made quite a dent on my mermaid jacket. When I last posted a picture, I was just past the middle of the back. Now I'm up to the second armpit. Just have to knit that and then the right front and the shawl collar before moving onto the sleeves.

Normally a project that's all garter like this seems interminable to me - since it can be impossible to see that I'm making progress. But with all the stripes and gussets on this garment, progress is easy to notice, and that's extremely encouraging!

Back to knitting!

Couple of things of note today. I was at a birthday celebration of an 89 year ole lady tonight. That's pretty awesome in itself if you think about it!

Second thing, during my 3 hour car ride today, I knit almost non-stop. And broke a personal record I'm sure. My knitting was about 36 inches long when I get in the car. I just measured it right now. 160 inches. I'll say this much - knitting something only 4 stitches wide sure makes it grow a heck of a lot faster than anything else I've ever knit!

Looks like a big pile of noodly tangles doesn't it?

I know many of you are fans of the Yarn Harlot and read her blog religiously. Then you already know she's started up her push for Knitters without Borders this year. For those of you who aren't.. even if you don't care for her blog as a daily read, please do go read her Return of the Light post.

That post really hit it home for me. I've never been wealthy, but compared to so many others in the world, I have it pretty darned good. I have a roof over my head, and have always had good yarn to knit with (even if I had to learn to dye it myself to be able to do so!)

This annual donation drive that the Harlot does as turned into something truly amazing. As of right now, she's got over half a million dollars there. HALF A MILLION! That's come from donations from all of us, in small amounts here and there, adding up to something huge. I'm a big believer in that sort of thing since I worked in fundraising when I was in college. And even at my best, I only raised half of that over the course of two and a half years. I'd love to see this number hit a million dollars, so I'm doing my part this year with donating what I can. Would you please consider joining me in making a donation to this worthy cause?

Details on how to donate to Knitters without Borders are on the Harlots blog.

Do you spot something knitted on that tree? It's the mystery object from a couple of posts ago. No, christmas tree ornament is not it's intended final use, but for now there are TWO of them hanging out on the tree. Now there is lots and lots of icord left to knit and some assembly before the FO can be revealed.

I'm saving most of the icord knitting for this weekend though - I've got several hours in a car ahead of me, so when better to knit Icord, right? For now since the weather forcast is calling for snow late next week (apparently this is a once every 10 years type phenomenon around here so it's A. BIG. DEAL.) I figured I better get moving on my mittens.

A very pleasent evening was spent with cabley knitting and a bottle of what may just be some of the best rootbeer I've ever had.

Mighty yummy! Both the yarn and the rootbeer that is!