What with Henry’s birthday coming up on Wednesday and him having such a big head and all, I needed to make him a hat that fits.  So here it is.  With a gigantic pom pom on top.  This hat is full of happiness.  It has not perpetrated any violent actions.  There has been no rocket fire or even foul language on it’s behalf.  It is an uncontestedly happy and noncontroversial hat that I made up out of my own head.  For Henry.  Who will hopefully not lose it. 

Hoping that Six is one helluva great year for you, Henry dear.

Oh, I know you’re terribly disappointed in the blog fall-apart since the stellar posting in November.  I don’t know what to say.  There’s been nothing major or life-changing, just a winter vacation and some snow.  I’ve been knitting like crazy, and obsessing over some knit design, um, issues, and generally just staying up late doing things other than writing. 

It was fun, though, blogging every day.  Let’s see if I can do it for the rest of January.  Right now I’m grabbing five minutes while the kids are at a “Kids Night Out” program at school.  We will leave shortly to retrieve them. 

Today I took the kids to see The Wizard Of Oz at the Seattle Children’s theater.  Sam liked it, Eli said parts of it weren’t boring.  Note to self:  borrow daughters for next trip to theater.  I cried for Dorothy.  I’ve been very weepy with the Israel news, so I’ll pretty much cry over anything just about now.  Tonight Scott and I saw Gran Turino, also a cause for tears.  What a great movie. Why is the world such a horrible place?  In my head today, during the play, I said it right along with the wicked witch:  “What a world, what a world!”    I decided right then and there that what I need to do is a lot more cackling.  To Eli: “I’ll get you my pretty!  And your game boy too waaAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAhaahhaha!!!”  Yeah, cackling really might be just the thing. 

I saw crocuses coming up this week.  Spring, please come soon.  Please? 

I’ve donated some knitting patterns to help raise money for Ravelry — so all you knitters who love Ravelry, make an $11 donation today, 1/1,  and be entered to win a prize!  There are other prizes to win too, including yarn of course.  You could also donate a prize, if you’re so inclined.

Go here.

Non-knitters, move along.  I promise some non-knitting content sooner or later.  Probly. 

Mom – your cowl is coming along!

The color is not 100% true in the photograph.  Moving along quickly!

I love my yarn too!

Yarny goodness abounds!

I’ve been in a bit of a knitting frenzy lately and — if you can believe it — a cleaning frenzy today.  I all a’sneeze from going through piles of old papers and stuff.  I hate throwing things away!  As soon as I do, I find I need them.  Also, I usually file things away in safe places and then completely forget where I stashed them.  Awful.   Now that I have my sewing room/office all cleared away I need to do my business taxes and make sure all my licensees are up-to-date.  At least that stuff is well-organized.  Ah, end-of-the-year bookkeeping, how I dread thee… But you know what, the anticipation is always worse than the actual doing.  It’s easy to do – just hard to force myself to sit and do it.

Happy new year, everyone! 

My Ukranian neighbor is out shoveling his driveway with a big smile on his face.  “We grew up with weather like this!  We are used to it!  …  I remember … my Grandfather would come and say, ‘Here’s 20 rubles, happy Chanukkah!’” 

I need to bring those guys some latkes. 

How should the flowers go?

It’s just tied on for now… until I decide how I like them. The three across way looks weird on my head — like I have three mis-placed ears.

Oh, and AbigailVR — this is how the cast on edge of the mystery stitch hat is supposed to look.  Bumps at the bottom of the k2 column! 

That’s Spincycle yarn from two years ago’s Urban Craft Uprising — I think it’s Blue Faced Leicester?  Spincyclers can you confirm? 

Found a mistake in the cast-on instructions for my Mystery Stitch Hat: Oh, Honey.  If you have this pattern and you need an update, just shoot me an email and I’ll send you the corrected pattern. It’s a one tiny stitch correction.  Accidents happen; we fix ‘em. 

Now that I cut the back of my hair short, I needs to keep my neck warm. I might keep this cowl… but maybe not.  Who knows the destiny of the cowl… The only thing we know for sure is Pam Needs Lip Balm.  Also, to clean up the house.  Yarn ends and knitting tools seem to be piling up around me for some reason.  >shrug<  Need to get something else on the needles soon.  This is the main contender.  Lovely, eh?  But for now, a brief moment of house cleaning.  Or maybe, I’ll make another caffe latte…  cleaning… latte… cleaning… latte…  decisions, decisions. 

If I say Sam made this himself, you think I can get him a scholarship to college?  He did not, in fact, make it himself.   Sam and some neighbor kids made the bricks a la Wall-E, then Scott helped them construct it.  They have been outside all day. 

Eli didn’t last long outside.  “It’s too cold.”  Why don’t you wear a hat?  Put on some layers? “No matter what I wear it’s too cold.”  Why don’t you try wearing some more clothes.  “No, that’s ok.  Can I do screens now?”  No.  “Can I do screens now?”  No. 

I finished another hat.  Actually, I finished it mostly last night while watching show tunes on youtube.  Today I picked out the cast-on edge, picked up stitches on a smaller needle and double knit about four rows, then did a tubular sewn cast-off.  It took just as long to re-finish the edge as it did to knit the rest of the hat (brioche on size 13 circs).  Translated for non knitters:  It was a lot of work for a hat to be quickly lost by a six-year-old.

Sides fold down for maximum ear coverage.  It also fits Scott.  Lousy pix on my flickr site.

Another snow day tomorrow.  Need to finish one mystery scarf that is >>this<< close to completion.  Thinking about mittens too.

Finishing the hat… Look, I made a hat…

It’s too big for me, I know.  This is my snow-day-albeit-lacking-in-any-snow look: comfy, with my glasses on. Haven’t blocked the hat yet.  There’s a possibility of better photos to follow, but then again I may just mail them ASAP.

Oh, and so today school was canceled because we were anticipating a snow storm that never arrived.  This region is hilarious with the snow-fear. 

Off to block my hat.