edges

It's almost done! Mom will finally get her shawl after three years!

It's pretty, but incredibly boring to make, I think that's why it's taken so long. I do love knitting borders on these things though.

why do i get bananas? they're only good for one day

A little bit of progress has been made on the Melon shawl.



I can only knit so much at a time, and then I have to put it down. The colors are looking pretty interesting - I can't tell if I really like it or not. I think I do, though. My mom likes it so far, and that's what's most important.

I went to the yarn shop today and found the 4-ply cashmere on sale (again!), so I bought two skeins of black to use with my leftover red from the hybrid. I'm going to make it into a stripy sweater of some kind. I don't really like how much this yarn pills, but I love the yarn so much that I am willing to put up with it. (No pictures because everyone knows what black yarn looks like.)

I also bought some Manos for my friend for Christmas. She's a pretty new knitter and she wants to make a scarf like one she has already - a stockinette tube. I got her some addis, too, and I'm going to teach her magic loop. I really don't like knitting with the magic loop method, but it's worth learning, so she's going to learn it. I have no picture of the manos because I forgot to take one before it got dark. It's a pretty purply color - not exactly the shade she wanted, but it's close.

After today I have yarn waiting for four sweaters. Three of them I'm interested in making, the other one not so much. I'm not exactly sure what to do with that one, the front is nearly finished, but it is very time consuming and I don't like it very much. I guess it will just sit there with the rest of the yarn until I can be bothered with it again. I also want to make venezia right now, before the rest of them (look at this beautiful one, I'm so jealous). What to do?

very little knitting this christmas

The first week of my two week vacation is nearly over (it didn't actually start until Tuesday afternoon), and I have about two inches of knitting done. I gave up trying to figure out which shawl/scarf to make for my mom, so I just handed her the Victorian Lace Today book and had her choose. She chose the Melon pattern and asked for it to be 24 inches wide instead of 17, and maybe shorter than 72 inches. I'll probably keep it 72 inches long - that extra length is always nice.



The pretty purple Jade cashmere is turning into a melon shawl. The variation in colors looks okay - I think I will like it better when it is bigger. Right now it sort of looks like the colors faded in certain parts. I'm sure it will turn out okay, though.

My Christmas present was a new camera. The ever popular D50 (thanks to Jared). I think in another life I took lots of photos, because I have always loved cameras and taking pictures. The last three days I have been trying to remember how to use an SLR, and I have remembered most of what I learned. When I was about 13 I used to take my parents' Pentax to school and take pictures of all my friends, and I sort of learned how to use it on my own, mostly thanks to the light meter. I really have no idea how or why the pictures came out, but they were always beautiful with that camera.

Here are a few shots from the last couple of days:



A flower, the cat, self-portrait (practicing with the wireless remote!), and a silly picture of my dad (that camera really brought out his blue eyes).

I also got an interesting shot of our Christmas tree. I haven't figured out how to take nice pictures in the dark yet, but I thought this one was pretty neat:



In all my 23 years I have never had a real tree, though my mom tells me we had one when I was 3, but I don't really believe her. We have always had a fake tree with lots of semi-tacky ornaments, some antique ornaments, and lots of colored lights. My dad conveniently threw away the fake tree while he was cleaning out the garage (it was about 18 years old, it needed to go), so mom and I had to go buy a new one. While we were driving around last night my mom suggests we get a real tree! I was so excited. This morning we found a pretty nice one and it was only $40. My mom picked it out (which is only funny to me because she's Jewish), and I think she did a great job. I decorated it tonight with lots of colored lights, old ornaments and candy canes. I think it's cute.

I have been reading a great book on photography, so hopefully my pictures will get better. Maybe we will have a little bit of sunlight tomorrow and I can get some more knitting shots.

I hope everyone is having nice holidays!