Sunday, December 19, 2010

Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away...Just Yet

I live in Central California, which means that we often have fewer than ten inches of rain a year. Heck, I remember years, when we've had less than four or five. This weekend alone, it has rained over three inches. What a wonderful way to begin my Christmas vacation, with an excuse to stay inside and do nothing other than read and knit! Now, for Russ, Paige, and me, reading isn't out of the ordinary, but catching Kai with a book is a little  rare sight. This may have something to do with him being told he couldn't play "World of Warcraft" until he'd read for an hour, but it still made me happy. He's reading A Christmas Carol, which Julie gave me last year as part of our Christmas swap. I've been reading and enjoying Chocolat and The Lost Art of Reading, and have about five other books sitting by the couch, tempting me.
I had finals last week, which for some stupid reason I thought would mean I would have more free time. I had a party of some kind every night and was pretty busy with school stuff still, but I did get one more set of my little mittens completed. My snowflakes on them are a little wonky, but who said snowflakes had to be perfect.

My most recent knitting project hasn't been too positive. Paige hasn't generally shown much interest in having me knit her anything, so when she said that she wanted me to knit her a sweater, I was excited. I had her browse through Ravelry to find something, hopefully something free. I wasn't too excited when she showed me her choice. It was called Lyric Tree, and it looked kind of "messy" to me, too unstructured. Of course, it was also $8, and the yarn cost $100....and I stupidly went ahead and bought it as part of her Christmas present. If I'd written this post this morning, I would have had to include a couple of cuss words to continue, but I've had a bit of a breakthrough after hours of re-reading the directions and pouring over forums and comments about it. I'd say that at least half of the people have had some of the same troubles I've had. I've decided that the designer is probably talented but inexperienced. She doesn't use standard knitting abbreviations and hasn't included a chart. The tree pattern is really pretty, and maybe I'll be happy with the finished product, but I'm apprehensive about it.  If I had trouble understanding her directions for simple cables, I hate to think what's going to happen once I get to the armhole and neck shaping.



Oh, and besides all of that, Kitty keeps sleeping on it every time I lay it down. Actually, I don't mind that. I think she's cute.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just got caught up on all of your awesome postings (since the oct one) and loved them all. You have great shots of people, food and knitted items........I am trying to picture in my head what corner Kai is reading in......and can't figure it out....maybe you have rearranged since our March visit. MERRY CHRISTMAS to our CA relatives. xoxo
Ann

Willow said...

Love the little knitted mittens! And I think the cat is cute too.

Yes, we are thankful for the rain. I wonder if somehow we could fix it so all the rain came at night and the days were still sunny. We'd get our xx number of inches of rain but still have dry days.

I wish my hubby enjoyed sourdough bread. I love it but him--not so much. Otherwise I'd make sourdough bread all the time.

Merry Christmas from the coast!

Knittings Nice! said...

Cute mittens.

Hope your rain stays, here in blighty we are shivering in -10degrees, and seems set to stay for over Christmas. Bascially Britain is shut, airports closed etc, lots of people can't get away...roads iced up, good excuse to stay in and cozy up I think....have a great Christmas.x

Tracy Batchelder said...

Nice job on the mittens. They are really cute. Good luck with the sweater.

Joansie said...

I love the pattern. It will be interesting to knit.

Thimbleanna said...

Wow -- I'm so impressed that yo've been knitting in the middle of the Christmas rush. And those mittens are ADORABLE!

Anonymous said...

When Stuart was little and said he was bored, I would tell him to go and read .... he would say did he have to, as if it was a punishment!! Then I would say that I would love someone to tell me that I could sit and read all day!!
Check out my mitten bunting in today's post!!