The Coco Clutch is Done!

I started this project a while ago but stopped several times. I started but was frustrated to find that there was an error in the pattern so I put it aside and worked on some other projects for a while. Since it was intended as a Christmas present I had motivation to pick it up and try again which was good, otherwise I might have just given it up. The other projects that I was working on also happened to have repeating patterns which helped me to see the pattern in this project when I came back to it. I have realized that I'm much better at looking at the portion that I have already knitted and "reading" the stitches to see what I have to do next than I am at counting rows to keep track of a pattern, even with fun clickey counters.
When I picked this up for the second time I decided to knit it in just one piece by knitting the side panels attached and then knitting the live stitches on either side together with the bottom section of the bag and then picking up the stitches up the sides as I knitted up the back. I'm glad I stuck with it because I've very happy with the way it turned out and now that I've done it once I could make another one much more easily.

Gingerbread House

Last weekend we gave in and went to Costco. We didn't realize that it was the weekend before Christmas but by the time we did we just had to go anyway. It turned out not to be bad at all once we got a parking space but there were lots of tempting Christmas goodies. Somehow we managed to make it out with only some bows, cards and a gingerbread house kit (from the Christmas stuff that is). Then we just needed to find some time to make it.
We visited my uncle to do some Christmas caroling in his town which was lots of fun and while we were there we noticed that they had a gingerbread house that looked suspiciously like the the picture on our gingerbread house kit.
Last night we finally got a chance to build our little house. It turned out to be lots of fun, and the house looks good too.

Knitting Flurry

Christmas in New York

The Christmas season in New York officially begins with the lighting of the tree in Rockefeller Center and this week we got a chance to go admire it. You can't really tell from the pictures but in person the lights seem very blue. Maybe that is just so that it comes out looking normal in photos.
It is also fun to watch the people skating under the tree. I've never managed to convince myself to wait in the massive line and pay the exorbitant fee to skate there, but maybe one day.
Across from the tree there are also the window displays at Sak's Fifth Avenue which are always fun. This year we even managed to pick a day that didn't have a huge line so that was nice.

Further adventures of Ginger the cat

You know, vets always like to ask "do you let her go outside?" To which I can never quite manage an articulate reply. That doesn't really describe the situation. We don't let her out on purpose, but Ginger can be at the other end of the house and still manage to run the dog over and get outside before him when we open the door for him to go out. Ginger has also been known to jump out windows and push open doors. She has a completely different approach to getting back in, which is to yowl loudly until we wake up to let her in.

Buddy is all dressed up!

Todd's mom made Buddy a tie! It is really cool! Thanks to Scott for sacrificing not one, but two dress shirts so that the collar would fit around Buddy's ruff. Doesn't he look nice!

Anime Hat

As soon as I came across this on the internet (while searching for top-down socks) I knew that I had to make it. It was so cute and it looked easy. It really did turn out to be very easy to make. I started it on Wednesday night and finished on Friday. I didn't want to have to buy yarn to make it (and I promised Todd that I wouldn't buy any more yarn) so I decided the gray merino wool I had would be fine. The pattern calls for a finer yarn but I actually knitted a swatch and figured out that I should follow the instructions for the smallest size and it turned out slightly smaller than I would have liked, but only by a tiny bit. Now I just need to make a little face and I'm all done.

New Kitty

During Thanksgiving dinner my mother mentioned that she wanted another cat, so the next day while we were relaxing and watching TV Sofia and I persuaded her that we should go to the animal shelter. The animal control facility was closed, but we went to the ASPCA and I volunteered to wait in the car while my mom, Sofia and her friend Grier went in to see the kitties. The mission was a success and they came back with a six month old male kitten. He's very cute and playful, but we're still working on a name for him.

Paaartay!

We had a little party for my birthday at my parent's house and it started out as a tame night of tasty food and taboo, but when the martinis and cosmos turned into kir royals we ended up doing lots of arm wrestling, tried to feed the cat birthday cake and dancing with the dog. It was great fun! And for the record, I won my arm wrestling match.

Trip to Portland in Pictures