Socks!!! We were blessed yesterday with being able to join my friend Shirley and her whole family for Christmas dinner at her beautiful home. Nine adults ate way too much, talked a lot and got to share stories of our various childhoods at Christmas. She gave us a basket of what I thought were cookies when we left. Much to my surprise, when we got home and emptied the basket, buried under the various baggies of cookies were a new catnip mouse for Miss Boots AND a glorious pair of blue and white socks in an intricate Norwegian pattern for me. They fit perfectly and will be worn a lot. The basket is a perfect size for a sock project though I doubt I ever attempt anything as ambitious as what she gifted. Since she also used to make baskets, I'll have to ask if she made that also. Thanks Shirley!

Fun with some smaller projects while I work away on Fulmar. Finished two Booga Bags in some left over Nuro Kureyon which just was not working as a sweater. The color run was very short and the sweater looked like it had spots! The bags are knitted loosely on US#10-1/2 needles and then felted. Even though they were knit to the same size, they felted differently. Found a nice piece of batik fabric in my quilt fabric stash and made linings for the bags. No idea what I'll use them for or who will get them as a gift but they were fun to make.



Also making my first pair of Selbuvotter mittens, pattern Annemore #13 using Briggs & Little one ply wool in white and Harrisville Shetland in dark grey on US #2 double points. This is a learning process but that is part of the fun. The book
has over 30 patterns for mittens and gloves.




I'm up to the decreases at the top of the mitten. Comparing what I'd done to the photo in the book, did discover I'd left off one whole chart repeat on the cuff but this is my learning pair - right?

First sleeve on Fulmar is started. I added 2-1/2" to the right side of the sweater (front and back) and now are knitting the sleeve in the round. The actual round starts at the white marker. The decreases will be taken off the bottom of the sleeve rather than beside the cables. Hopefully I haven't added too many cables beside the main one running down from the saddle but I love heavily cabled sweaters.

Vernonia, OR just about got wiped out with a recent violent rain and wind storm. The river rose and the town was extensively flooded with lose of homes and personal possessions. One of our very caring online knitters, Helen B, known as the list mom for the Mara_Class Yahoo knit group (BrightHavens.blogspot.com or Bluedragon on Ravelry) suggested we go through our yarn stashes and donate what we won't use. What a caring woman and a great gift for those who have lost all.

If like me, you have way too much of most everything to do with knitting (and quilting), go through your stash and send off a box to the town doctor. She'll get the items to those who can use it to knit, crochet or quilt and take their mind of their surroundings for a while. The address is:


Dr. Phyllis Gilmore
c/o Community Center
Vernonia, OR, 97064

Here's my box going off tomorrow - yarn, needles and a variety of patterns.

Fulmar continues to be a fun knit but quite slow as it is on very small needles. It takes about 45 minutes to do one front side cable row and one back side row. The front and back are knit down from the saddles to the armholes and put on holders. We were in VA again this past week and I didn't get a lot of knitting done. Mindless knitting on the Booga Bags was pretty easy while made that 840 mile drive down. Found I can even knit at night with no lights on! However, Fulmar is not a light less knit.



The neck ribbing has now been knit four times and may be ripped out again. Ended up with K1b,P1 as I just could not seem to pick up the cable patterns well enough to carry them up into the neck ribbing. First try, picked up way way too many stitches and the neck bloused out. Second time, very poor pickup and the cables didn't flow well. Third time was close to flowing but too big again. Fourth is now on the neck, is the right size and doesn't show the pickup row too badly. Perhaps next time I do a sweater top down in the FLAK method, I might try to cast on over waste yarn and leave the stitches live.

May rip, may not, but will leave it alone a while and think about it. The rib does bias to the right a bit due to being knit in the round with a tightly twisted yarn. Also while riding, I could pick up the side stitches to start the sleeves. Did a 3 out of 4 ratio but haven't measured yet.