Happy 2016!

Good Grief! What does it take to get a blog post written around here!?

Well it does help that the holidays are done. When you make stuff that you normally blog about and it's holiday time - you can't blog about the stuff you are making! The elves in Santa's little workshop would be most upset!

I was in California for the holidays visiting my family. It was a lovely visit. Colder there than in Philadelphia though! But I got to spend time with my two favorite boys. 

 

Liam is on the move. He crawls but mostly he wants to pull himself up and walk along stuff. He can't do it by himself yet, well, at least he couldn't three weeks ago. He is also tasting all kinds of new foods. So far the favorite? Spinach and pears:

 

How do you spell adorable? L-I-A-M. 

The problem with waiting so long to blog is that there is SO much I want to post, then I start thinking of how much, and I groan, and I find go something else to do. The quick update is this one:
I made a lot of socks.

Ann's socks:

I got this fantastic book a few years ago, Around the World in Knitted Socks. Absolutely love this book and I want to make every pair. But who's got time for that? This pair was a Swedish design with Ann's name written all over them. I love knitting color work, much more than cables, so these were just so much fun to knit. 
Ann has tiny little feet and so even though I knitted the smallest size, she was still flopping around in them. Quick repair before leaving California - take off the toes, straighten the yarn (still attached to the socks) and knit less of a toe.

  

All fixed!

Daddy's socks:

 

Daddy got the "poiple" socks this year. He said he would wear them, but not in public. Fair enough. 

I had a little left over red yarn from Ann's socks so I put hearts on the bottom of the heels. And then I had even more purple yarn left so Liam got a matching pair of his own.   

 

We tried valiantly to take a picture of the two of them and their cute socks, but Liam was having none it. So here is the next best picture of his little socksies:

Tara's green cable knit socks:

I had a vague idea I wanted to give these away when I started them. But then they became way too much work. So I wear them now. These are also from the awesome socks book. 

 And since I decided to keep them, I suppose I could have blogged about them sooner.

I made other stuff too:
The purple sock yarn seems to be never ending (I still have some). I saw this really cute hat and wanted to knit it for Liam. It knitted very quickly - and I swatched I promise! But it turned out teeny tiny.

 He sure looked cute modeling it though - then I sent it to a friend who just had a granddaughter. Maybe she (the granddaughter) could wear it for a few minutes before she out grew it.  

For Christmas I got this gorgeous Købenstyle pot - in my favorite color!

And you can't have cruddy old pot holders that you've manage to catch on fire a few times with your new pot - so you crochet some new ones.

Think the making and the crafting stops there? Ha! Nope:
I got Ann a book for Christmas and we sat down and crafted our hearts out.
 

Danish traditional Christmas decorations include the woven paper heart or Julehjerter. I stumbled on this publisher, Klematis, a while back and they have some great things - including some books in English. Unfortunately not this one.  Now, it's not as weird as you'd think - ordering a book in Danish. I studied there in college and then my Dad and Ann went there for a semester as well. The book has lots of pictures too - but the fact that it is in Danish sure makes putting some of these together extra challenging. But we did it! We put quite a few of them together.    
                                                              

It was very sad to leave the book with Ann. I'm actually having withdrawals from crafting these things. It's kind of a high once you get one put together. I have to say that the swirly one almost did me in. 

Then of course, there is the collecting of things to make other things: 

My dad said, "Let's look through my type and see if there is any face you want out there. But there are some faces I want to keep like Caslon." He wanted to be able to de-accession his type cabinet so that there was more room in the garage. Alas, I didn't make that big of a dent for him. But I scored big time:

Look at that beautiful face! Fat slabby serifs, and the type has to be at least 84pt. It's bigger than 72 for sure.  

So I packed up the contents of the drawer into two flat rate boxes from the USPS. Thank goodness for those - let me tell you!

 All of that lead type weighed a little over 36lbs. I asked at the post office if there was a weight limit to the flat rate boxes and she said, "yes, 70lbs." I don't know how the box could possibly HOLD 70lbs, never mind how any human could lift it. I was worried with my measly little 18lbs in two boxes! And one of them did arrive a little smashed. Nothing was damaged inside, but the outside of the box looked like someone had just tossed it off a cliff.

When it arrived I got is sorted into it's own little drawer.

 

I got a little bonus too - these beautiful decorative Caps. These are only 36pt. 

My new year's resolution is three weeks over due: to blog every week mostly about stuff I'm making. Why not? I'm making things all the time... food, knitting, clothing, stuff...
stay tuned...