We’ve got lots of hiking trails here in the Rocky Mountains.  There are two located less than 5 minutes away from our house. But this post has absolutely nothing to do with them!

Nope, this is about the Irish Hiking Scarf and matching Irish Hiking Hat I made for Philip.

Remember the pink cabled beret I made last year?  Well, I’d never knit cables before, so I wanted something simple to learn and practice on.  So I started the Irish Hiking Scarf.  Once I figured out that cables are not nearly has difficult as they seem, I put the scarf away and made my hat.

I knit a bunch of other things after that, then finally returned to the scarf in October-ish.  I finished it quickly, then started a matching hat.  The hat also only took a couple of weeks, which amounts to maybe 6 hours of total knitting time.

But I was never able to get a picture of either of them because by the time Philip got home from work wearing them, it was dark.  But the other day he was home around lunch time and I made him model his knit wear.

Behold!

The cool thing about the hat is that the cabled band is double thickness so it keeps your ears nice and toasty!

The pattern for the scarf can be found here for free: Irish Hiking Scarf The matching hat pattern is also free and is found here:  Irish Hiking Hat

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This is for my friend Tami.  The first thing she said when she arrived at our house, after my family finished mugging hugging hers, was that our banister was going to look great for Christmas.

The candy garland is from my childhood.

This buffet table is about 90 years old and newly restored to its former glory.  The dining room is too small to fit the whole set, so this piece moved here.  Philip actually came up with the idea to put it here, and I like the weight it gives to the entry way.   Plus, it provides some nice display area.

Right now it has our lighted Nativity.  I bought this so long ago that I can’t even remember when.  This is the first time we’ve had room to put it out.  Originally we had Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and animals all set up, too, with Baby Jesus safely tucked away until Christmas and the Wise Men waiting off to the side to begin their journey.  Then one of the children said that maybe we should put Mary and Joseph away, too.  And boom!  It hit me.  Boo has a statue of Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem.   We packed everyone away and put the statue out instead.  Now we are reminded of Mary and Joseph’s difficult journey all through the Advent season.

I smile when I see this statue.  Mary’s patient, resigned face is so telling of her end of pregnancy state.  I have been pregnant for two Advents, both times just about ready to pop, too.  In fact, my girls were each born at 8 pm, one 3 days before Christmas and one 3 days after.  I am eternally grateful for the comfort of our car instead of having to sit on a donkey.

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So here’s today’s Design Delemma.  The staircase seems to need something (during the rest of the year, mostly).  Or does it?  It curves, so it’s tricky to hang anything up, but I suppose we could make it work.  My original thought was to put a round table in the space, but with the buffet table we’d just end up zig-zagging around.  So what say you?  Attempt to hang something on the curved wall?  Leave it as is? Here’s a different view, capturing the whole hallway.

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One month, almost to the day I cast on, I’ve finished my rainbow scarf! Entrelac is surprisingly easy, so it was a good mindless project for watching TV with.  I got it all finished and blocked and then it got just cold enough to be able to wear it at least once before packing it away for the season.

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My most recently completed knitting project - a pink, cabled beret.  I’ve read that slouchy berets are all the rage out in California, and you know me - always on the cutting edge of fashion.

Here it is, flat on the table.

I’d never done cables before, but they were surprisingly easy.  I added an additional round to the pattern to accomodate my big head and thick hair, and also to allow the hat to come down and cover my ears.  The next time I wear it, I’ll probably be in Colorado.  Barring an early Spring snowstorm here, of course.  One can hope.

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I love getting comments on my blog, but I find myself in a conundrum of how to handle them.  If someone asks a question, should I reply in the comments or through email or both?  All comments to my blog arrive to me through email and I’m supposed to be able to hit reply and it goes right to the commenter.  But I don’t think it’s working right.  I wrote out this nice lengthy reply to someone and right as I hit “send” I saw that it was going to my blog’s inbox. So I have no idea if my replies are even getting through.

So I’m going to answer some questions here.

Tami asked why she wasn’t able to make smilies appear in her comments anymore.  It’s because you need to leave a space between the sentence punctuation and the punctuation for the smiley.

Nancy wanted to know which colorway of Noro Silk Garden I’m using for my scarf.  It’s number 87, which is mostly jewel tones.  The scarf I’m making calls for 4 skeins.  By the way, the pattern I’m using is free.  I think it’s well written and is a good way to learn entrelac.  You can find it here:  Entrelac Scarf.

Janice was wondering if it’s all one skein of yarn.  Yes, it is! It’s handpainted varigated yarn.  I have seen other people’s entrelac projects where they used 2 different skeins to get a very specific set of color changes, but that’s a lot of work and I like the way the yarn does all that work for me.

JennG was wondering if I learned all these fun knitting techniques from books or from other people.  A little of both, but mostly I’m self taught.  I learn best from reading (what kind of learner does that make me?), so I can usually muddle along well enough to get by. Part of the fun of knitting, for me at least, is trying something new.  I’ve managed to infect several people in my neighborhood with the knitting bug and having all these new and quickly learning knitting friends has inspired me to try all the fun things I’ve seen others do.

Angoraknitter (a fellow Army wife who just moved to our area) mentioned that she can hardly wait until her yarn arrives (I’m assuming in her household goods).  Angora - can I call you Ang? - you don’t have to wait!  There’s a fun knitting store in Old Town Alexandria.  Head north on Hwy 1, after you pass the Beltway, turn right.  It doesn’t matter which street, but I turn at the gas station.  When you get to Washington, turn left.  When you pass the statue in the middle of an intersection, Knit Happens will be on your right.  I think the cross street is King.

She also asked me about my ottoman and chairs seen in my messy living room.  They are indeed from IKEA.  Both have removable, washable slip covers - a must in a house with children!  We put sliders under the ottoman feet so we could move it around the living room easily, but that was a mistake.  Pushing the ottoman around caused the knobs under the lid to break off, so the lid slides off when bumped into.  That was our fault, though, since it was designed to really stay in one place.  The chairs are comfy and have enough room under them to store a basket full of Wii paraphenalia under one and the WiiFit board under another.  I had to wash one of the slip covers during our last round of stomach virus and it washed up wonderfully.  No fading and the wrinkles disappeared once the slip cover was back in place.  I spot clean the ottoman at least weekly and it’s holding up well, too.

OK, I think I got all the recent questions.  Now I’m off to try to figure out how to get my emailed replies sent to the commenter.

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My friend Shanti and I are at it again.  Crafting, that is.  We’ve been crafting buddies since the very late 80’s.  This time we’re having a knit-along together.  Several people wanted to know what I’m making with my Noro Silk Garden - well it’s for the entrelac scarf that Shanti and I are each knitting.

I cast on yesterday -

I love the way that entrelac looks like it’s strips of knit fabric woven together, but in fact it is not.  It looks tremendously difficult, but again, it is not.  If you know how to increase, decrease and pick up stitches, you can knit entrelac.

As for the Silk Garden, well, what can I say?  I found it online on sale and I had a coupon code. I saved $3 a skein, which only makes me love it more.  It feels sort of scratchy in the skein, but when it gets knit up it seems to soften.  I’ve read that with a good soak before blocking it’ll soften even further.

Did I mention that entrelac is addicting?  I keep wanting to finish just one more block, then one more row, then oooo! a color change is coming up, gotta keep going to see which color it is!  I don’t think this scarf is going to take long to finish!

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Today when I got home from our homeschool group, I found this on the front step:

And I found this in my living room:

So what’s a knitter to do?  Well, since I didn’t make the mess, I’ll let the culprits clean it up themselves.  And since I did buy the yarn, I’m off to wind it and print out the pattern I’m using with it.

Priorities.  Gotta have ‘em.

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Did I mention that our computer wasn’t working?  Well, it got fixed.  Then I did something to it and it’s not working again.  This time it may be fatal.  Apparently, I should not be allowed to touch the technology.

I was going to tell you all about this year’s Pinewood and Powder Puff Derby, but I have pictures and guess where they are?  Yep, the computer.  The good news is, they are not lost forever because we back up our computer daily using an online service.  I just can’t get to them until we restore the files back.

But I can show you my latest craft projects.  I finished several things that have been almost done for a number of months.  The first one is this teddy bear which I made for the Mother Bear Project.

I got the pattern from Knitting For Peace.  Normally, a title like that would cause a knee jerk reaction from me.  I’m allergic to “peace” causes.  There’s a whole lot that needs to be done to achieve peace and knitting isn’t one of them.  However, I saw this little bear on someone else’s blog and she mentioned the book, so I bought it.  I’m really glad that I did.  It’s filled with lots of great projects to make for others in need.  Most of the patterns can be found for free on the internet, but the stories in the book are well worth reading.  The one about the Mother Bear Project brought me to tears.  And so a bear was born, or er, knit.  Be sure to check out the Mother Bear Project website, especially their Photo Album.

Then I finished my snowman’s scarf:

And I crocheted a chicken pot pie holder.  Too funny!

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Sorry about the big silence last week.  My parents were visiting and I had to spend less time on the computer and more time making it look I was doing housework or being busy.  I did get a lot of knitting time in, with a couple of completed projects to show for it.

I made a dishcloth - woohoo!  No stunning feat of knitting prowess here, just a stash of cheap yarn and the need to get out from under the massive projects I’ve undertaken of late.  Very quick, very satisfying.  You can find the pattern here:  Ballband Dishcloth.  That’s the yarn company’s actual website, but aren’t my pictures way better?

And then I started this:

No, not a ghost with a hat, but a snowman without a scarf.  I’m still working on the scarf, then I’ll show you the finished product.  He’s just too cute not to share right now.

But before I started either of those projects, I finished something that is a surprise, so if your name is Jenn and you had a baby on Christmas Eve, you need to click away right now since this is the last thing in this post, or at least act surprised when you see this in person.

Really cute mock cable baby hat and…

a soft, warm blanket with a matching crocheted edging.

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FELT!

Remember this bag I started on?

Well it only took me a few days of knitting it during snatches of free time.  I embroidered a trailing vine and some berries so then it looked like this:

Just a bag, really.  But then my friend Sheril, who had been crocheting a wool bag of her own, came over and we felted!  Stuck the bags in pillow cases, put them in the washing machine with HOT water and an extra long cycle, then sat back an knit other projects.  Every 10 minutes or so we checked on them until the bags had felted.

Behold

How cute is that?

I love how the embroidery gets totally incorporated into the bag.

The pattern can only be found in the Fall issue of Interweave Knits magazine.  Or you can buy a kit from the designer on Etsy: SheKnits for Knitters.

She sells complete kits to make the original Dumpling Bag and the Double Dumpling bag, which is what I made.  I’m all about letting other people do the shopping and letting all the supplies I need arrive at my front door.

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