Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas Time!

I smell coffee brewing and it's wonderful.  Christmas day 2012 is here and I'm at home with the kitties, while Mr. Grumpbump is at work until 2:00 p.m.  Macy's Christmas gift to me is that she is sitting on the couch with me and exposing her fluffy belly and accepting a few rubs from me.

Macy
I attended my knitting group's Christmas party a few weeks ago, which was a super fun evening, and in the course of buying presents for secret santa and door prizes, I ended up buying 10 skeins of a discontinued cotton yarn by Adrienne Vittadini.  It is the most lovely shade of red.

I knew I wanted to wear this color but the yardage for each ball was only 87 yard so I had to start with something small.  I found a really cute, easy pattern for a cowl on Ravelry called Sweet Memories.  Of course, I made a mistake right off the bat and only cast on 170 stitches and I used smaller needles than the pattern calls for (size 7 instead of size 8).  I was worried that this would be too small to loop around my head and that I would just end up with a yarn necklace.

I finished it yesterday and worn it to dinner at my mom's house.  I would like it to be longer (and probably will be if I knit it on size 8 and cast on the required 200 stitches), but it's really cute for a first try.  And my first tries don't always work out.

Me and my cowl

Love this red

My mom tried it on and it looked great on her.  This red is a really pretty color.  I wish it were in something other than the cotton yarn.  I cast on a new attempt this morning and hope I can have this done by next week.

I told Mr. Grumpbump that I would not buy anymore yarn until I had made a significant dent in the stash in my closet.  I also told him that I found it odd that no one ever gets me a gift related to knitting for my birthday or Christmas.  He said that everyone just assumes I buy everything I need for myself so they don't have it.  And he doesn't believe me that I will swear off yarn buying.  He thinks I'm addicted.

I did get a wonderful gift for my birthday from my mom - the gift of housekeeping.  She arranged for her housekeeper to come by my house and give it a thorough cleaning before the arrival of Mr. Grumpbump's family at the first of the year.  Those ladies did a marvelous job and my house has never been that clean, ever.  It's just so nice to come home from work to a spotless house.   I had so much stress because I was just trying to plan how I was going to get the house organized, cleaned and ready for guests while continuing to work full time.  This gift relieved all of that stress (I managed to organize most of our junk in the few weekends leading up to the house cleaning) and now I get to enjoy my two days' off for Christmas.   One of the best gifts I've ever received.

When Mr. Grumpbump gets home from work, we will open the few presents that "Santa" has left for us and I will try to make decent headway on my second cowl.   A very nice, lazy day for me and my kitties.

Delilah

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