This is cool. We left Iceland at about 5pm and arrived in Boston at the same time. It's a 5 hour flight to America and there's a 5 hour time difference between the two countries. Which all means that it was 5pm for the entire trip. The view out the window was eerily constant - the sunset frozen shortly before sundown, the sky turning dark only as we finally turned to fly south down the eastern coastline of the US. Local time 5 o'clock.

But let's go back to 5pm the night before....

For our last night in Germany, we lit the candles on the tree one last time (yes, the family still uses real candles!) and I finished weaving in the last ends on the in-laws' afghan. I didn't even have to stay up till 5am to get it all done!

Finally done, I could go to bed and get some sleep for the next day's trip. We got the airport in plenty of time, check-in was easy peasy (there's so much less stress when you're flying to Iceland - still in Europe - first!) and the kids had plenty of time to play in Kiddieland before we had to go through security.

wee one is sharing her Zwieback with Ernie

The kids waited excitedly for the trip to start.

And once on the plane, wee one enjoyed my book (well, the cover at least) before settling in for a good nap.

But the boys were too entertained by Iceland Air's fun stuff for kids and "How it's Made" on the in-flight entertainment and forgot to sleep. They woke up at 3am this morning and here's how they were at dinner tonight (we had to go out to eat because we haven't had time to buy any food yet).

Wake up, boys, it's only 5 o'clock!

One last little Christmas present to give away while I'm here: a bunny tails hat for a wee girl cousin. This was a last-minute gift that I had to find yarn for, but I was pleased to find a very nice yarn store in the local area (and trust me people, this is a big deal because there's not anything in the local area!). The chocolate brown of this Lana Grossa Merino 2000 caught my eye right away, so I decided to make a brown bunny with little pink bows. And a white cotton tail, of course.

I'm so pleased with how this came out. It was a heikle Sache at first with some gauge issues and some reknitting. I wasn't expecting this sport weight yarn to work on a US7 needle, but it has a wonderful body and sproing that makes it knit up soooo nice. I finished up the ears in the dark shortly after midnight while watching some locals shoot off fireworks and ended up making one ear a wee bit longer than the other, but I think it adds personality to the little guy, don't you?

Here's hoping this adorable new year's bunny is a sign of happy knits to come in the new year.

The Christmas crafting isn't over yet! I've got yet another itty bitty hat to knit and some things to sew (yes, I brought fabric to Germany to sew!), but first there's still the afghan for my in-laws.

Looks pretty good from the front, huh? When they opened the gift and pulled out the afghan, they seemed to like it. They said the colors were beautiful and it must have been a lot of work. And the work continues....

I'm down to about 100 ends left to weave in. Seriously, the back looks so much better than before that it seems practically finished to me! All the remaining ends are in corners where four squares meet and require a little more careful attention to ensure that all the joins look nice and neat. I left them to the end so I could work on them calmly once the majority of ends were already gone and the whole back wasn't quite so overwhelming and scary. If I can get the final ends woven in in the next 48 hours, it'll be a wonderful way to finish off another year of knitting.

Happy New Year to everyone out there and best wishes for a creative and crafty 2008!

Wee one versus godzilla!

Wee one walks!

A quicky wee hat for a friend.

Nick the Cat hopes that if he saves his seat early, he'll get some of Christmas dinner. Dream on, Nick.

Nuts with nutcrackers.

A toy for wee one.

A giant Lego remote control dinosaur! First I'm going to build the creepy spider!"

"Look, the giant lego ferris wheel that was on my wishlist!" He actually jumped up and down when he opened it, just like they do in movies.

Two Red Sox rookies work on the ferris wheel.... and.....

Stolz.

My handmade Christmas gifts were well received. And now I can work on weaving in the ends on the afghan in the living room in the evenings without having to hide in the bedroom anymore. Pics to come when it's all done!

Twas the night before German Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except Alison who was sewing up an afghan as fast as she can.

One more seam and my two halfghans will make one. It's... gonna... be... grrrEAT! I can't get a really good picture of all the colors when I'm doing the wide shot, so here's a close-up so you can see how pretty the yarn really is.

There's still a bazillion ends on the backside, but the front should look clean and complete by tomorrow. Hooray!

Sixty-four squares to sixteen squares to four rows. I'm getting there.

We're off to Germany and I've only manged to sew the afghan squares into four large rows. And I didn't get to weaving in any of the ends either. But I'm okay with that. We're there for two weeks - I'll get it done. My goal is to work away on it at night in secret for the first couple of days so I can give it to them all in one piece, but still with thousands of ends hanging off, on Christmas. Make that Christmas Eve, since that's when they do presents in Germany. Grrrr.... With three kids, there's little chance I'll get anything done on it in the plane, but I am planning on bringing part of it with me just in case. I'm packing a crochet hook, a chibi, and some kids' craft scissors in my carry-on, so wish me luck getting through security!! And while you're at it, could you maybe make it stop snowing here? Aaaack!

I know you want me to get back to the knitting already, but I can't just yet. For one, I haven't touched the afghan since I blogged about it last week (instead I've finished every other Christmas gift!). And b, I am practically peeing in my pants with excitement to tell you about these next projects!

First, a future project.

When we did early Christmas this weekend, mom brought me a fabric bundle to make the Color Wheel quilt from Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. She went straight to the source (Purl of course) to get a whole kit. I can't wait to make this one!

Next up, one finished Christmas gift.

My great aunt's asian quilt is all done and it has come out sooooo beautifully that I want one just like it. This is actually my very first "full-sized" finished quilt. I'd quilted and done the binding on my wee mini-quilt, but this time it was for real. And it was a gift, so you know I had to do my absolute best. I spent about four hours sewing down the binding (hey quilters, is that a crazy long time or normal?) and what a difference it makes. I love that it isn't just one color. Amy Karol has you piece the binding together on this lap throw from leftovers of the main fabrics. It's such a sweet, homey sort of touch. And I still can't get enough of that backing fabric!

I finished off the quilt with a fabric quilt label made with inkjet printer fabric and following the instructions in the Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts book.

And last, but definitely not least, a surprise project. I couldn't blog about it because it was for hubby. I had to work on it over at friends' houses and when he went out to the gym. It's not done yet, but I managed to get it to a point where I could wrap it up and give it to him for early Christmas.

It's a quilt made from his old concert and high school t-shirts! About two years ago my mother-in-law gave me a bag of some of his old t-shirts she'd saved and asked if I could do anything with it. I thought maybe I could and once I started quilting, I knew what I had to do.

Almost from the beginning, I had envisioned finding some black and white check fabric to set off the squares for a 90's rock 'n roll kind of look. When I found the check in flannel at Quilters Way, I decided that flannel was the way to go for the whole quilt. The old t-shirts are super soft, not crisp like quilting cotton, so the flannel really keeps that whole feel across the entire quilt. The back is a solid blue jean colored flannel that is so soft that you just want to snuggle up in it, even if you don't like Meatloaf!

It still needs a binding (I didn't even have time to remove all my basting pins), but even unfinished, hubby loved it. He was so surprised to see those old t-shirts he'd totally forgotten about. We've agreed that when it's all done it can't be folded up and put in some drawer somewhere. It'll be out by the sofa or, if we ever move to a house with more wall space, maybe even hung up to see. Isn't that nice?!

Quilting rocks!

It's pointy kitty! My second pointy kitty, to be perfectly precise. The first is still nearly headless and completely faceless, as I haven't yet had time to get back to it to do the final sewing and embroidery. Christmas presents come first, so this red pointy kitty for the boys' two year-old cousin C has pushed to the front of the line. And it's a good thing I didn't waste any time doing the features on the other pointy kitty, because they took forever!

My buttonhole stitch skills are right up there with your basic 7 year-old, which means that it was slow going and all a little sloppy. Perhaps that's too harsh as far as the 7 year-olds go, but it sure does describe my talents. Still, she came out pretty cute. You can barely find the nose and the tiny whiskers in that red flower print, but the eyes stand out very well and really make the face, I think. And now if she'll just turn around...

...you can see that the machine sewing is my real success story here. This pointy kitty is way pointier than the first one I sewed together because my stitching was so much better at the points and I did a better job of clipping and turning. Practice and all that, you know.

As an added surprise, her little flannel stripes are super soft! I picked the flannel because it coordinated well with the flower print - the belly and inside of the legs are also done in the flannel - but never imagined that it would add so much texturally to the kitty. It really is a joy to pet this little critter. And the proof...

Have you ever known an Alison? One L or two L's? Ever introduced one Al(l)ison to another? It's the first question we ask each other. It's a thing. I'm one L of course, but today I've got two.

With the arrival of my baby L and the birth of her new little cousin L in August, Oma needs two new mini-weasley ornaments! These aren't my own mini-weasley ornaments from Charmed Knits because back in 2004, when I first made a mini-weasley for each family member for my mother-in-law, I used the mini-ornament pattern from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. I used Rowan's felted tweed (the yarn that Rowan's original "Harry Potter sweater", aka the Weasley sweater, pattern called for) and saved all the leftovers so that future additions to the family could have matching ornaments. You know, back then the boys outnumbered the girls 7 to 4, but with a wee C joining the family two years ago and the two L's this year, now we're all even! And I'm running out of the now-discontinued red/brown color I used for the girl ornaments. Boy time!! Now if I could only find the wire to make the hangers....

More Christmas crafting coming up all this week!

Since we're leaving for Germany next week (yikes!), grandma santa is coming this weekend to do early Christmas. This means that I had to finish up the handmade gifts I'd been planning for her.

These are my versions of the stitched scrapbooks from Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. They were so much fun (and so easy!) to make. Mom loves these little notebooks, so as soon as I saw the pattern in the book, I knew I wanted to make her some. I picked out fabrics that she said she liked from (from left to right) my rulers quilt, my first quilt project, and Ikea.

The instructions in the book are awesome and it genuinely is a "less than 2 hour" project as the book claims. I thought it would be hard to stitch through the notebooks, but it wasn't (I used a jeans needle just to be sure and it went through the notebook cover like butter). I thought the thread would just pop right out of the cover, but it didn't (the pattern calls for a little Elmer's glue on the inside cover). I only wish I had bought more little notebooks to make more of these for me. What a wonderful way to use scraps from your favorite projects!

More handmade gifties and early Christmas coming soon....

The focus of my blanket-making activities has shifted in the last few days from the manos afghan to the asian Bend-the-Rules quilt.

I have to admit that I love this whole pressing part. Crazy talk, I know, but it's true. It's just so fun to press everything and see how beautiful it's all come out. And this one is coming out quite beautifully, if I do say so myself.

The quilt top is all done. I think Amy Karol's easy lap throw pattern with its long strips does a good job of letting these fabrics show off their simple elegance. I picked out an extra-special fabric for the backing so the back will be equally lovely. The whole thing is all basted together now and awaiting quilting.

But my time in the East is up for now. I must return to the other side of the globe to get cracking on that manos afghan. The deadline for finishing both is just over one week away!! Can I make it around the world in 8 days?!

It seems like just yesterday that we Knitsmiths were throwing a little baby shower for "Jofrog" Johanna and now her baby tadpole is one! That calls for a special giftie, don't you think? I thought so, which is why I picked up this fabulous tadpole fabric from Purl Patchwork.

I've spent the last few months improving my sewing skills, so I was able to turn that fabric into a cute little pinafore for Kaya.

I used Butterick pattern #5349. It was a simple pattern that didn't seem too intimidating. The long curved seams themselves were a bit intimidating, but the pattern wasn't. My favorite thing about it is that criss-cross back and that it's actually reversible (love that sweet coordinating stripey fabric on the other side!).

I tried putting in on wee one for a little trial and photo (which is why it looks a little wrinkled in the pics!) but she was having a fussy day and a runny nose so I figured it'd be best if we just let Kaya do the real try-on (can't wait to see pics on her blog someday!). Wee one should have her own collection of these little pinafores soon though, because I know I can do it now. Oh, and I've been collecting pretty dress fabric for her like crazy - heh, heh.

Happy birthday, tadpole! May you grow up to be a beautiful froggy someday just like your mama.

After a hectic day during which the baby didn't nap at the right time, the boys didn't get going at the right time, and I picked the absolute wrong time to run out of diapers, I've finally made it to the computer!

Christmas crafting has continued here, with one more afghan square completed and the next underway.

Only three more of these variegated squares left to knit and I'll have all the squares I need to sew up the afghan. Unfortunately, when I bought the yarn (all those months/year ago!) I didn't have the 16-variegated-squares-through-the-middle plan yet. Nor did I know exactly how many squares I'd get out of each skein (answer: about three in the solid colors, give or take a couple of yards, but only two and half from the variegated colorway). And so I am one skein short of completing the variegated squares. Naturally, none of the local stores have that colorway in stock right now. Jimmy Beans to the rescue!

They sent it super fast, which means I should be able to finish the knitting this weekend. Hooray! See you on Monday with all 64 squares in hand. As for now, I'm at sixty-one and counting....

I needed a man's hat for a man (no duh) for Christmas. I've got a ton of knitting/sewing/childcare to do, so I didn't have time to go searching forever through all my books and at the yarn store for the right pattern. I'm in Christmas crafting countdown chaos and am wishing out loud that someone could just tell me all the, let's say, cabled hat patterns that they've heard of that might work. And it hit me, oh yeah, ravelry can. And it can show me pictures! Here's what I found.

It's the 3am hat by SmarieK and it was just what I was looking for. Manly cables. Nothing fancy ('cause most men don't really appreciate the fancy). And it looks great in that boring gray Plymouth Encore I had in my stash.

Thanks to ravelry, I can check off another holiday gift!

Thanks to Rita, who included a link in a comment to my last post about crocheting squares together, I decided to give myself a break on this afghan and do a simple crocheted slip stitch to join the small squares into big four-patch squares. (The prospect of mattress stitching 64 squares together was starting to depress me.) I took a break from knitting the last few squares to get started by sewing the four large center squares together.

I'm still undecided on how to arrange them though. My original idea was to have the variegated squares form an "x" through the center of the whole quilt like so....

But I kinda also like this look with the variegated squares forming a box around the solids which meet in the center.

No need to decide just yet thankfully. I've still got plenty of knitting and sewing to do. The tally is now sixty squares and counting....

How to arrange 64 blocks of 8 colors plus one variegated in an afghan in an interesting pattern such that the same color doesn't ever meet up with itself? It's afghan sudoku!

With this afghan, I decided that I want it to be made up of four-patches, that is, larger blocks combining two squares each of two different colors (see my earlier posts this week to see some of the four-patches). This lets the diagonal mitre lines come together to form an "x" through the center of each four-patch. Since the entire afghan is also a square (8 squares by 8 squares), I've also been toying with the idea of having 16 variegated squares form a larger "x" through the middle of the afghan. With eight colors, that means each color will appear once in a four-patch with the variegated colorway along the diagonal. The trick is to figure out how to arrange the other colors so the same color doesn't end up being repeated in the same row or column and so that the overall look is pleasing. I can try to solve the first problem on paper, but for the second, there's no other way but to lay them all out and see how they look.

This is going to take a while. I'm up to fifty-four squares and counting....

This one starts with some sewing. As a Christmas present for the boys' newest little cousin (another baby L born in August!), I wanted to make a little cuddly blankie with minkee, a super soft chenille-y fabric that makes me wish I were a baby again just so I could have a minkee lovey. I saw a few cute patterns on an episode of Simply Quilts that made me think, yeah, I can do this, and went off to JoAnn's armed with a 50% off coupon to see what I could find (is there any other way to go to JoAnn's?!). I found this kit to make a cuddle quilt with a cute flannel print, some satin and lace and minkee.

I wasn't really planning on doing patchwork and using a bunch of different fabrics, but I simply couldn't resist those funny floating bunnies! I watched the Simply Quilts episode again, spent an eternity cutting those squares to size (aaaaack, cutting those satin squares was like trying to cut water!), and took a close look at several of original patterns from the designer on Simply Quilts to decide how to turn the JoAnn's kit (oh, only $9.99 with my coupon!) into exactly what I wanted. I really wanted to put the minkee on the back instead of using it as a border so ended up having just enough minkee to make the quilt 18" x 24". Perfect size for a lovey: not to big for a little one to drag around and still not too small to keep little one warm in the stroller on a chilly day.

So glad that this was not my first quilting project! It sure was helpful having a little practice when it came time to sew those squares together. And my walking foot, looooooove my walking foot! Anyhoo, the minkee lovey came out great and I gotta wrap it up or I'm going to rub it raw, it feels so good!

Sooooo (this is where we get back to the afghan) after all this sewing, when I finally decided that the manos afghan needed one more color, I naturally thought, pink!

Manos color #24 joining the pile

I'm at 52 squares (and one Christmas gift!) and counting....

I'm no mathematical genuis and I haven't checked with my protractor or anything, but something tells me that middle mitre ain't 45 degrees! After about 48 squares, I sort of lost my mitre mojo and knit a dud. I was cruising along and then got near the end and realized that I had waaaaay more stitches on one side of the "center" line than the other. Whooops. I did some serious fudging on this one. And it shows. There'll be no keeping that one if I want lovely little matching mitre lines in my squares.

cream (Manos color #14) and multi (Manos color #113)

Adding the one measly mitre I finished last night and minus this one mangled mitre, I'm still at fifty-one and counting....

While I'm working this week on finishing up these mitered squares for the afghan for my in-laws, I thought I'd focus on some of my favorite (and not so favorite) squares of the bunch. Today, one of my faves.

Did you ever listen to Winter Wonderland and wonder exactly what shade of brown "parson brown" was? Uh, I did. Never really asked myself why we would want to pretend that the snowman was brown or what that had to do with him marrying us, but I was a kid, you know, and when you're a kid you let those little inconsistencies go. I think I'd imagined that a parson was like a bird or something, maybe like a partridge ("hey, they're both in Christmas songs, so it must be right!" went my kid logic). Yeah, parson brown like cardinal red, that makes total sense. At some point I managed to escape my kid logic, put the two lines together and have that moment where you realize you've been thinking of something wrong your whole life, but I have to admit that when I listen to that song, I still hear "parson" as an adjective at first. It makes me smile to catch myself thinking about the brown snowman.

And because it's Christmas-time and I just love love love the brown in this afghan (Manos color "M"), it sort of tickles me to think of it as the elusive parson brown.

Parson Brown and his brethren

Almost forgot to report my progress: fifty-one and counting...

My mitre mania weekend was a huge success! Here was the stack of afghan squares as it stood at the beginning of last week: 20 squares.

Here it was this Saturday: 42 squares.

And here it is this morning: 50 squares!

"TAKE US TO YOUR SEAMER"

I was a mitre making machine! I made 30 squares in the last 6 days, 28 in the last 5! It turns out they go much faster if you don't start them off incorrectly every time. I got about a quarter of the way into the first three before I realized I was working in stockinette and not garter stitch. Doh, double doh, and doh doh doh! How do you do that three times in a row?! Once I convinced my hands that we didn't need to purl that first row, I found myself cranking out squares and winding new skeins of yarn at a record pace. And now I only have 14 squares left to knit. Time to start worrying about how to put them all together. Did you see all those ends?!

Fifty and counting....

Since I've started making mitered squares again, I've been able to get about 1 1/2 squares done each day. No matter how hard I've tried, somehow I just can't make it through that second square at the end of the night without falling asleep. Now, I know I said 'one square at a time', BUT then I crunched the numbers. If I have 22 squares and I'm going for, let's say, 64, I need 42 more. At 1 1/2 squares per day, that's one full month until I'm done knitting. Aaaaack, we're flying in a month and I sure can't do all the sewing at my in-laws! Even two squares a day would take me 3 weeks, leaving only one week for seaming. Prooooobably not enough.

So my new plan is to crunch out like 20 squares over this long Thanksgiving weekend. Then I can slow back down to the more reasonable pace of 1 1/2 squares a day and still give myself a couple of weeks for seaming. I've already gotten started on my mitre-mania weekend.

Two and a half squares in cream. This is the last of the eight colors I chose for the blanket. Once I have a few of every color, I can start laying them out and thinking about a pattern. But first things first, knitting.

For now, I'm at twenty-four and counting....

The big knitting project for this holiday season is.... well, it's the same big knitting project as last season, only that I'm going to actually try to knit it this year... the mitered square manos afghan for my in-laws.

This is where I was last March: twenty squares. After a 20 month pause (I did write a book and have a baby during that time!), I've finally picked up the yarn again. Two more squares completed and I hope I'm back in the rhythm.

I had originally planned on making 80 (yes, eighty!) squares. They're only 6 inches square, so that makes a good 4 x 5 ft. blanket, not humongous or anything. Still, given my total lack of progress and the remaning time until Christmas, I've revised my goal a little. Now I'm shooting for a minimum of 48 squares, which would make a 3 x 4 ft. blanket. I'd be thrilled to get 64 done, making a 4 x 4 ft. blanket. And I get a gold star if I manage 72 or, unthinkable, the originally planned 80. You see, we're actually going to visit the in-laws this year for Christmas, so if I get it done, that means I can bring it with us on the plane. No expensive shipping, no worries about it getting lost in the mail, no worries about the in-laws paying any customs fees, blah, blah, blah. Nope, this is THE YEAR.

Twenty-two and counting....

Are you ahead or are you behind? It's that time of year again - time to start freaking out about all the holiday gifts I haven't started making yet! My list this year includes one lap quilt, one minkee baby blanket (both from Bend-the-Rules Sewing), and a softie toy for a little cousin of the boys. Yes, sewing is in this year at the Hansel Christmas worshop. The elves feel that we can get more done if we don't try to knit everything. (There's still plenty of knitting to be done though - more on that tomorrow!)

First up is the softie toy for 2 yr-old cousin. I searched around for an easy-ish pattern and found pointy kitty, a free pattern from the amazing Hillary Lang of wee wonderfuls (she also did the wee elephant softie in Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts). I pulled out some pretty red floral fabric I had bought to make a dress for wee one, along with some leftover blue ribbon fabric from my rulers quilt and got started cutting out pieces. Look, they look like kitties already!

I decided to start by making a practice pointy kitty for wee one with the blue fabric. Hillary's pattern really is wonderful. There's a good deal of easing and pinning that you have to do, but it was okay once I took the time to do it right. She warns you that pointy kitty is tricky to turn right side out and to get all pointy again after sewing, but after dealing with some of those teeny limbs on the sock creatures, I wasn't too worried. And actually, it was only that tail that gave me any real problems. By the end of the night, I had practice pointy kitty parts ready for attaching and final touches.

Cute, cute, cute. And I love that it stands up on it's own. The boys immediately recognized that it was supposed to be a kitty. I always find that reassuring when they have a positive reaction to my stuffed toys and can identify what they were supposed to be. But this is more than a kitty. It's a head-start on my holiday projects!