Home again, home again

Well, I wasn't ready to come back home, but the calendar said it was time, so here I am.

I gave my mom the best Christmas present ever! I told her that I would knit her a St. Brigid sweater by Alice Starmore. She was so happy, she cried! My mom made this sweater for me when I was in college and knit one for one of my coworkers. She's always wanted one and has been frustrated that she's knit the thing twice but doesn't get to wear it, so I knew it would be a hit. She's going to order the yarn and then I'll start on it right away.

And then she got what really is the best Christmas present ever. His name is Max.

He plays hard and sleeps hard. He likes people, and if his toy rolls too far away he brings it back so that he can be closer to you. Sometimes he naps on the tree skirt, but when he wakes up a little bit, he'll come sit on the couch with you and go back to sleep. He'd climb up on my chest and rub my face and knead and lick my lopi sweater. He sleeps all night in bed with my mom, snuggled up next to her. He's a perfect kitty.

We decided that he needed a mouse, so I knit him a mouse with bobble ears with Lopi Lite leftover from my sweater. He loved it!

(I made a braided tail, but the yarn pulled apart, which is why he has no tail now. Didn't seem to bother the cat any. :)

Mom's older boy cat wanted to play a little, too, so I made him his own mouse, but he seems to only want what the baby has. They play together a lot now, and he doesn't seem to mind too much that the baby stalks him. The older female cat is not happy about the kitten, but hopefully the household will settle down soon.

So most of my vacation was spent being sick and playing with the kitten. And, of course, knitting. (Note that there are only kitten pictures, not knititng pictures.) I should have finished my jacket, but I didn't feel like working on it. However, I made good progress on the Flashy Lace sweater and I'm about a third of the way down the second arm. I sketched and tried out some patterns for a baby blanket for my best friend and eventually sort of settled on something, so I'll do more sketching and then try to get moving on that. I tried swatching for Marcel's Sweater from the last Interweave Knits in Taj Mahal, but it didn't go so well. I have another yarn to try, and maybe it will work better. The pattern is a lot harder than I expected when I first glanced at it. It's mainly twisted stitches and 1 st-cross cables, which were very slippery in the Taj Mahal. We'll see how the other yarn works. I also cast on for a pair of socks on the way home, but it's a highly variegated yarn and I'm not sure how to add some texture that I'll like (and no slip stitches -- I'm still sick of them). Maybe I'll find something in a book. Maybe I should have brought more books home.

I did bring home a lot of yarn. Tons for socks, which sounds fun when I think I want socks, but maybe I want more big projects. I bought some beautiful wool-slik tweed to make a jacket/sweater from a Rowan magazine, so I might start that... well, after all that stuff I just described. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

Last night I made a quick trip to Woolcott to buy some Cascade to make penguin scarves. Pictures and the story tomorrow...