The last of the “Oh, you’ll definitely have a Jayne hat by Christmas” orders are out the door, so now I’m free to work on the “well, maybe” orders. I’m trying to get as many done as possible – everyone should have a Jayne hat under the tree.
Getting gauge on gifts.
It’s a wet morning. Emily has a special reading celebration at her school today, including a picnic and outdoor games. She’s been looking forward to it all year. It’s caused some stress as she wasn’t sure she was going to meet the goals required to attend the celebration, so this is a particularly meaningful event for her. Unfortunately, it’s raining hard enough to put the kibosh on lunch in the field. Here’s hoping they can cram everyone into the gym without the noise levels bringing the roof down.
I was also hoping to run this morning, but it’s coming down pretty good and I’m just not that hardcore. Maybe a run on the wii fit will do.
In knitting news, I test-felted a sample of Lamb’s Pride worsted in Strawberry Smoothie. Sometimes the lighter colors don’t felt well, but this colorway does, so my projects are still on track.
And that’s the news from Lake Woebegon.
Three pairs of Fuzzyfeet in varying sizes for my nieces, who are also varying sizes. I just finished these up today, aside from weaving in ends. Since we go see them tomorrow, I’ll be weaving in ends tonight. Talk about squeezing it in under the wire!
As you can see, I didn’t bother with a jogless join to make the stripes line up. I figure since it’s on the sole, it won’t really matter.
Knitted on size 10 1/2 needles with Lamb’s Pride worsted from my stash. I have a big stash.
Since kids are notoriously picky about clothes, they’re also getting gift cards. We just also wanted them to have something to go under the tree besides a little envelope.
These will be given unfelted, along with a zippered pillowcase and instructions on how to felt them, so that the kids can have the fun of making their own slippers exactly the way they want.
I’m happy with how these turned out, and happy that I was able to do it entirely from my stash without purchasing any extra yarn.
Em is currently watching the Royal Ballet perform the Nutcracker on PBS. I’m just glad she’s getting to see the real thing instead of the Barbie version. Merry Christmas one and all.
Every year I make FuzzyFeet for my kid’s teacher as a Christmas gift. Em picks out the color yarn that I should use. I send them with her unfelted, along with a zippered pillowcase and a sheet on how to felt and the science of why it works. We’ve had good teachers every year, so I tend to think they’ll appreciate a fun little project that’s also educational.
Every year I leave this until the last minute because I put the Jayne hats first, and every year I’m frantically knitting the night before school lets out because I’ve forgotten that school lets out sooner than I expect and I don’t have the time I thought I did. One year I even drafted Turtlegirl76 to knit them for me because I had absolutely no time and I really needed it to be done.
Not this year! This year’s FuzzyFeet are in Lamb’s Pride worsted colorway Red Hot Passion and they’re finished! Another item I can check off the list. Hooray!
(For those wondering how big those slippers are before they shrink and felt, voila.)
Speaking to yesterday’s soccer freakout on my part, let me say that while I was still trying to get my eyes open at 7am this morning, Em had her cleats on and was ready to go. She consistently said she had a great time, soooo…. back she goes!
Today, a little lesson.
In which I try too hard and make things way too complicated.
I had to try again, just to wash the taste of that scarf away. And this is better… but I think this technique just isn’t for me. So that’s it for felting with silk hankies.
Moving on, some Emily art! This is two girls playing a clapping game in the vein of “Miss Mary Mack.” The game is called Double Double. I had to look it up since this isn’t one that I did as a child. I guess it’s one Emily does, though, because I got her to demonstrate it for me and she did it correctly and without hesitation.
I like that she properly has them sitting to do it, and that she puts them in profile instead of facing forward with their hands to the side or some such. Good eye.
We heard from her teacher today that Emily is auditioning for the end of year school talent show. Her talent will be telling jokes. She’s going to tell five. Emily’s jokes can be a little surreal sometimes, but I’m confident she’ll do a good job. She tells jokes to her classmates every day as they’re lining up for lunch, and apparently gets good laughs.
She’s always trying to come up with new material at home, then she asks “is that funny?” That’s always a tough line to walk. You want to encourage her, but you don’t want to lie and then have her bomb in front of a non-Mom crowd. I wrote a new joke for her the other day. Wanna hear it? Of course you do!
Q: Why did the hen take her egg to the doctor?
A: It was time for a chick-up!
Thank you! I’ll be here all week! Don’t forget to tip your servers!
Okay, onward to the Jayne hat portion of the day. Hats up for: Dallas, Dallas, and Austria.
Y’all have a good one!
E-mail from
“…WHY did you not sit me down, tie me up and force me to watch this before today???
And so, another Browncoat is born. Amen!
ETA: I might as well make this a proper post.
I just got the list of Emily’s spelling words for tomorrow. They start out okay but get hard pretty quickly. It starts out with cosmos and pecan, but then quickly progresses to muumuu, enzyme, perquisite, hircine, and mucilaginous. Yikes. We went over some, but she spelled “decoy” as “decoi” so I don’t know how this will go. Well, it’ll be a character-building experience.
I’ve gotten exactly one cuff on the fuzzyfeet done. I wound up running quite a few errands this morning instead. I have an eBay purchase to ship that wouldn’t fit in any of my boxes here at home, and I really wanted to get that out as soon as possible.
Now I’m watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer with my daughter while I consider whether to do an afterthought “bullseye” heel on the slippers instead of sticking to the pattern. That heel looked pretty darned good on these socks.
Tonight if we’ve got the cash I want to hit the Vietnamese place up the street. There are some spring rolls calling my name!
A big thank you to
Em’s still feeling a little sniffly, so she woke up a little later than usual and got her class about ten minutes late. She had to carry in a tray of cupcakes, so I came with her to open doors before her. Because of this, I got to see some of Read and Relax day. Some students were already going up the hall in PJs and jackets (it’s cold out there!) and the teachers were in bathrobes. Emily’s class was just starting to go to the bathroom in groups to change into pajamas when we arrived. I love seeing her in new environments. This time, I got to hear her go into her classroom with a breezy, “Sorry I’m late!” Hee!
Today, I’m making Fuzzy Feet for Emily’s teacher. Emily had wanted them to be yellow, so I made up a swatch out of the Berroco Ultra Alpaca I used for the Alpaca Jayne hat. Frankly, though, I was pretty sick of working with yellow, so last night I showed some of Creatively Dyed‘s Merino Twine (right) to Emily and asked her if she wanted stripey yarn instead. “Yes, stripes. That’s much prettier.” Yay! So I did a swatch out of the Merino Twine on size 9’s and it felted just fine. Swatch is below. It may be a little wide still, so maybe I should drop down from 44 stitches to 40. I dunno. Also, the stripe after felting has, we shall say, “a handmade quality.” I’m okay with that.
Got a couple more hats ready to go out today, as well as quite a few care packages which may wind up waiting a few more days. Time is not on my side.
I haven’t had coffee in a while, going for cocoa at my knit nights instead. I might have to go ahead and have a mocha today. But first, Fuzzy Feet!
Emily’s back in school. She got up and took her own temperature and reported to us what it was. She’s still sniffling and coughing, but I don’t think she’s contagious and she really, really wants to get back to school. She says her friends miss her. I’ll bet she’s right.
Email to jaynehat.com is still getting through only sporadically. This is troublesome, because I just ordered a thousand more business cards with that address (thanks again for Li’l Jayne,
The DNS issues with our various sites should be resolved soon. I worry that someone who ordered two months ago will try to write me and it’ll bounce, and that person will think I’ve vanished. Let’s keep a happy thought and hope that doesn’t happen.
I had planned to make a long post this morning about visiting my in-laws and how I taught all the kids in the family to finger-knit, or more accurately, to finger-crochet. Then I suddenly realized that I had neglected to make a Christmas gift for my kid’s teacher. So now I need to have three hats and a pair of Fuzzyfeet finished by Friday. This isn’t counting the packages that need to go out. So much for the long post. Maybe if I make good time this morning, or if Em stays in school all day, I’ll have time for more fun stuff.
On tap next: watching Superman Doomsday and knitting like the wind!