Brace yourself Bridget*

...there's plenty to catch up on, so here's the first in a series of What I Did While I Wasn't Blogging About It posts.

First knitting items:

Some flowers for my MIL's birthday (24th Dec), which open out to reveal:

and

The instrucctions were found on the Dishcloth Boutique site, where you will find amongst the many treasures: Yvonne's Double Flower pattern on page 3 of the Knitting Patterns, and the single flower Doily Style pattern on page 2.

I knitted the two facewashers out of Heirloom 8ply cotton in a cream colour (from stash), and it came out so beautifully! 4mm casein dpns, which was a little awkward at the 'cast on 8 sts and join to work in the round' stage, and I think it might be easeir to manipulate, and make a flatter centre, if those first 2~3 rounds were worked on needles a smidgen smaller.
Mods: I added an extra lace round before doing the edging on the Doily Style washer, just to bring the petals to a definite point. I think I'd like to add an edging round to the Double Flower one the next time I make it, just to give it a little more of a finished look, if you see what I mean.
These were quick and fairly easy - if you've knitted a hat in the round, you'll have no problems!! They came out at about 18~ 20 grams each, so I have a little bit of cotton left over - colour-work washers, anyone??

Second knitting items:

These Raspberry Fetchings were started way back in the Great Fetch-a-thon of Dec '06, but the intended recipient has slightly larger hands than I do, and requested a bigger pair. Fortunately, we visited Miss 1's namesake Great Great Great Aunty V (91 and powering on), who is a knitter herself, and she was very taken with them, they fit her, she loves the colour and the bobbles of the picot edges, so on Tuesday (yes, 11 1/2 months after they were cast on) I wove in the ends and wrapped them up in raspberry cellophane like a giant bonbon, and sent them to her via the MIL - I hope she will get some use out of them next winter.

There is lots more to tell you (another FO, the exponentially-expanding nature of Xmas lists, the Dance Concert, the visitors, the germs, the thing I cast on the other day that I knew I shouldn't have but did anyway.... and still more), but the ham bones need skimming (ham and potato soup tonight to chase away rainyday gloom and fight off those germs), and I may have to convince myself to do the tiniest teensy bit of housework before lunch.
And I have to take photos of some of the Things I Want To Blog About.
So this will have to do for now!



*for the slightly perplexed, the title comes from a creakingly old joke:
Q: What's the Irish definition of foreplay?
A: Brace yourself, Bridget.
(boom boom)
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Picot-edged Fetchings

As I may have mentioned, I was totally on the Fetching Fetish this Silly Season, so I made Chocomitts, Green-Fingers, Glove-Trotters, and have only the thumb left to do on a pair of Raspberry Rippers.
Since all my photos on DH's camera 'mysteriously' disappeared sometime between the 21st Dec and yesterday evening, I do not have proper pics until I can bribe the new owners into modelling for me! But I can offer you this Raspberry Ripper:

For the Picot Cast-On:
*Knit-cast on 6 sts, K2tog, slip st back to left needle, K2 tog, slip st back to left needle, cast on 1 *repeat to end

I fiddled around for a while to get it to work, but this way gave me little bobbles centred along the line of the cables, which I kind of fancied :)

For the Picot Cast-Off:
#1 work as for pattern instructions but centre over line of cable twists
#2 bind off using {K2tog, *slip st to left needle, K2tog*}, but cast on 2 extra sts over the cables and cast them off again straight away using same K2 tog method - makes a little tail-bit that curls over like a bobble.

You could also do a simple crochet cast-off and just work a few double-crochets (single in the US) where you want your bobble - of course, I haven't tried that one yet ;)

My thanks to Nonaknits for her excellent post that helped me work out what I wanted to do.
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Knit like it's the holidays...

Just to let you know - I knifted multiple pairs of Fetchings this Christmas (and it's not over yet!), plus a Tychus that needs a new edging to hide its resemblance to a floppy tea-cosy (don't talk to me about gauge and yarn-substitution), and there has been travel knitting galore:

1 entire Fetching on the ferry, 2/5 of the Tychus in the car, 1 Mini-Basketweave Toddler Sock in the car and at lunch today, and the cuff of the 2nd Fetching in the car this afternoon - when we go to visit relatives for Christmas, we don't let a few hundred kilometres get in the way of meeting for lunch!!!!

Will post pictures once I have internet access on own computer.

Meanwhile, here is a repeat of a little something I snapped earlier - the first two

Fetchings; 1 pair in a chocolatey wool/silk mix, 1 pair in a sunrise alpaca/wool mix

Since then I have been tweaking the pattern to add picots at cuff and hem (hours of fiddling), and centre them over the cable crossings - I like the finial-effect.

Best dash to dinner - Happy Silly Season to you all!

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