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It is finished! This was a major project, Stephen wanted a heavy duty jacket type sweater and that’s what he got. So, here is the basic template, a fleece zip up that Stephen liked in terms of its basic shape and style:

He decided he wanted it in black Alpaca yarn and super thick. I ended up knitting with Misti Alpaca’s Worsted Weight with two strands held together. Stephen is thrilled with it and can’t believe how warm and heavy it is. I’m pleased with how it turned out, it looks so nice and professional! Unless of course you look at the inside where I sewed in the lining by hand:

I’ll get a sewing machine eventually but in the meantime this got the job done. I decided to line it because the alpaca is so fuzzy and sheds so much. Plus I figure that the lining will help the knit fabric keep its shape over time. Those are pockets sewn into the lining by the way. I’ve never really learned how to sew so I was just winging it with all the finishing details. For the pockets I left parts of the sides unseamed and sewed them in there.

I used Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and the set-in sleeve cardigan numbers for the pattern. I did K3, P3 ribbing at the hems.  The collar is double thick. I knit up a bunch of rows, then purled a turning row, and knit the same number of rows then sewed it down. It stands up nicely which was one of Stephen’s requests:

This thing was a whole lot of work but in the end, Stephen got exactly what he wanted and I think putting in the time to get it just right is the best kind of gift I can give.

So there have been plenty of projects that have been finished and not blogged about through the holiday and wedding planning craziness. So today it’s time to catch up! Dishcloths are great gifts and they’ve become my standard gift for my fancy aunts. The Fancy Aunts are a group of my aunts and older female cousins who get together every couple of months to celebrate the birthdays that fall around that date. Dishcloths are great for Fancy Aunts because they are cute but also practical. I love the patterns in Mason-Dixon Knitting. I’ve now made two sets of three like this:

One set was for Mema and one was for my Aunt Didi. I think I’ve come to prefer the simpler pattern though. Three of these went to my Aunt Lorie and three to my Aunt Nancy:

Next time around I got a bit more adventurous with the colors and I love how they turned out. Here are three for my Aunt Margaret and three for my Aunt Libby:

Libby informed me that her almost-four-year old, Jack, loves the dishcloths and has claimed them for his own! And I quote from our family website:

“Jack’s favorite present of mine by far is the washcloths Annie made for me. He LOVES them. He took them over immediately. He hides under them and thinks we can’t find him, hops from one to another on the floor, and plays with them a lot. I keep putting them away and he finds them again. They are quite a hit.”

This cracked me up! As a reminder the dishcloth yarn is all Peaches and Creme Worsted.

For Stephen’s son Jeffrey’s birthday, I made him fingerless gloves.  Both the pattern and the yarn are from Knit Picks.  Here are the Men’s Convertible Mittens, made with Swish Superwash in Dark Navy, with the top down:

And top up:

Great pattern and a quick knit. Unfortunately Jeffrey apparently thinks that 1) Mittens are uncool 2) Fingerless gloves are uncool and 3) the blue is not dark enough. Therefore, these were firmly rejected, lol! Maybe the fact that Stephen thought they were so great and suggested them should have clued me in to the fact that his 14 year old son would think otherwise. No sweat, Stephen can have these and now I know what Jeff wants!

As a treat to myself for the holidays, I got some Hand Maiden’s Mini Maiden yarn in Ruby.  Mini Maiden is half wool and half silk which I’ve found to be such a nice mix, it’s got shine, it’s got stretch, it’s great!  I decided to make myself some nice gloves so I used the Basic Glove pattern from Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns.  My red silky wool gloves:

I forgot to take a picture before I’d worn them quite a bit so you can see that with wear they’ve started to pill a bit but I still think they’re gorgeous.  The color in the first picture is more accurate but in this next one you can see that they fit like, well, gloves!

I finished my Peach Cabletini socks awhile ago and I guess I never took a picture of the finished pair so here is just one:

These are the Cabletini Toe-Up Socks by Wendy Johnson and I think it’s a gorgeous pattern! The tiny cables are so pretty and the ribbing makes them nice and snug.  The yarn is Dream in Color’s Smooshy in Giant Peach.  Here is a picture up close:

It’s not often that I knit a project from start to finish without touching anything else. It’s also not often that I get some yarn and immediately wind it and start knitting. This was bought with a Christmas gift certificate for The Loopy Ewe and I was so in love with the colors and how quickly it knit up that I just kept going and hence the Four Day Socks. Beautiful.

The yarn is Schaefer Yarns’ Lola which is a light worsted weight.  Their colorways are one of a kind but The Loopy Ewe gives them names and this is Grapes on the Vine.  This is a basic sock, knit from the toe up with Judy’s Magic Cast On and a short row heel.  Here are the gorgeous colors up close:

So I think that’s almost all of the finished objects I hadn’t already blogged about.  I finished Stephen’s sweater this past weekend which was a major project and deserves a post unto itself!  That’ll be coming soon.

Earlier this week, just before bed I remember noticing that the dishwasher was making a really odd noise but didn’t think much of it. Then last night I woke up in the middle of the night and could have sworn I heard something but immediately fell back asleep and forgot it. Until this afternoon when I most definitely heard something in the kitchen. I was trying to decide how to go about trapping a mouse when to my surprise, I found this:

A little brown bat.  He wasn’t in the tupperware when I found him, he was actually trying to climb up the kitchen wall. I quickly helped him into the tupperware and set the lid on loosely so I could look at him. He went in easily but he let his displeasure be known by opening his mouth wide, baring his pointy, tiny teeth, and hissing. At least I think he hissed. He definitely made a sound although I don’t remember exactly what it sounded like. I do remember quite clearly that I found it rather humorous that he was hissing (or something) at me considering his state. For one thing, he was tiny. For another, he looked oddly wet:

I was worried that maybe he’d been stuck down in the sink or dishwasher but I quickly realized that made no sense because he was obviously still alive (hence the hissing). He quickly settled down and appeared to be napping so I grabbed my camera and took these shots. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to a bat before and I thought what I could see of his wings and the little talon-like things at the joints were pretty cool.

Considering the vigorous hissing I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt so I took him outside and set the container down and took the lid off. He didn’t move. It was unseasonably warm and sunny today so I thought maybe he didn’t like all the light so I put him in a bit of shade under a bush but he still didn’t move. So I brought him back inside and got on the internet.

I found the website for the Wildlife Center of Missouri and gave them a call. The woman I talked to was extremely helpful. She said that if he wasn’t bleeding and didn’t have an obviously broken wing then he probably wasn’t injured. She said he was probably coming out of his hibernation* and would be somewhat disoriented and weak. She said he also wouldn’t want to fly until it was darker out and to put him in a slighly elevated place. She explained that bats need to take off from a bit of height because they swoop down before they start flapping. I asked her about the wetness and she said that they are very vigorous groomers and that was probably all it was. She said that if he still hadn’t left by the morning to call them back.

So, armed with my new bat knowledge, I returned to my little brown bat. By then I had him in a cardboard box with some loose plastic wrap over the top (with air holes of course). He was sleeping peacefully so I decided to let him nap a while until it got a bit darker outside. About an hour later I went to check on him and he’d moved around a bit. He was dried off and fluffing up nicely.

He was awake and seemed to know that dusk was approaching. I took him outside and took off the plastic wrap. He chilled out and let me take a few more pictures.

Yeah the guano is icky but if you can look past that, he’s really pretty darned cute in my opinion. The pointy ears, the little nose, the fluffy fur:

And the wings are just so fascinating.  I settled his box into the top of a bush and sat down with a book on the porch. He really was a tiny thing, no more than 3 inches long.

About ten minutes later, with really no warning, I saw him swoop up, circle around a bit, then fly away. Fly away, little brown bat! Sounds like a children’s book or something, doesn’t it? I came inside and looked up Missouri bats.  I’m pretty sure that my guy was Myotis lucifugus, which I was delighted to learn is commonly known as the “Little Brown Bat.”  So that was my adventure this Friday afternoon!

*No, I really don’t want to think about the fact that he has likely been hibernating in our kitchen all winter long.

Many thanks to all of my podcast and audiobook listeners who send me such encouraging emails and comments - I can’t tell you how much it means to me. And thanks especially to the Anne listeners who’ve been nudging me to get on with it already! I am truly sorry to leave you all hanging for so long. Life has been busy and my motivation seemed to wane for a while. But I miss recording and LibriVox and plan on making it part of my routine again. So, without further ado, Chapter 29: An Epoch in Anne’s Life is now available. I have already recorded Chapters 30-33 for an earlier group version of AoGG so those are ready and waiting in the wings. I plan on releasing a chapter a week and by the time Ch. 33 is released, I should have the rest of the book recorded and ready to continue on that schedule.

One of the things keeping me busy these days is wedding planning! Stephen and I got engaged the night before Thanksgiving and will be married May 10th.

Yes that is a pudding pop in my hand. I didn’t know we were about to be photographed or I would have held off on dessert! Anyway, it will be a good sized wedding, probably between 75 and 100 people; but we’re keeping it as low key and stress free as possible. We want our families to be there and this will be as small and laid back as is possible while still including everyone (I have around 35 first cousins alone hence the large number for a family only wedding!). No loud band or DJ, just nice background music of our choosing (we’ll pre-program an iPod and they have a system to pipe it through their speakers). We’ll have a short civil ceremony followed immediately by dinner, all at Orlando Gardens. Orlando Gardens is a very nice banquet hall and weddings are their thing so they’ve been very accomodating with everything.  I ordered my dress online from Nordstrom’s and I think it is perfect:

I don’t think I’ll even need to have it altered. I’ll probably knit up a little pink shrug to wear over it. Here’s a close up look at the overlay, it’s a sort of netting with sequined diamonds in gold and silver:

My sister Julia will be my maid of honor and she has picked out a darling J. Crew dress in a gorgeous deep purple/blue. Invitations are ordered and here. I’m sort of just dealing with one thing at a time and that is working well for me. Next up is flowers, we’ll do pink and white flowers I think. And though I’m generally not big on gifts or jewelry, I am truly in love with my ring:

It’s a classic round solitaire in white gold and I think it’s perfect.

So far the planning has been lots of fun and only a little bit stressful.  I have an aunt who works in a bridal shop and is great help with planning.  And Julia is my perfect maid of honor, she knows what is in style and what needs to be done.  I can’t believe it’s only three months away but I’m glad we didn’t drag the whole process out for a year or longer.  So, that’s my fun news.  I don’t know why I didn’t post it sooner, I tend to have mixed feelings about posting more personal stuff on the blog but I guess the time felt right.  (Now I just hope Stephen doesn’t die when he sees his picture on the website - he was appalled when I posted a picture of his birthday socks on his feet without his permission!)

Besides hats, scarves are easy gifts; highly customizable and no worries about getting the size right. First up is the Fake Lace Scarf:

This is just plain garter stitch over 20 stitches on size 15 needles. The huge needles give it a nice lacy effect without all the fiddliness. Here’s a closer look:

The yarn is Misti Alpaca Sport Weight in the Chocolate Caramel Moulinette colorway. I knit this for Bev (Stephen’s father’s girlfriend) and she was wearing it the next time I saw her so I guess it was a hit!

I opted for a shawl for Dianne, Stephen’s mom, because it just seemed more her style somehow. I’ve had this yarn (Lion Brand Homespun in the Prairie colorway) forever, since the first time I learned to knit in college. It’s very pretty and soft but not as stretchy as I like to work with. Behold, the Garter Shawl:

The colors are far more muted in real life, the flash really picked up on them somehow. It’s plain garter stitch again with yarn overs at the beginning and end of every other row. Add a bit of fringe and I think it came out quite nice.

My mom requested a small scarf that she wouldn’t have to fold over at all and that wouldn’t be long and bulky. So, I came up with the Keyhole Neck Scarf:

It’s basic K1, P1 ribbing with ruffles on either end and the keyhole made simply by binding off some stitches in the middle of a row and then casting the same number back on in the next row. The yarn is Crystal Palace Panda Cotton in the Fruit Salad colorway. I knit it with two strands held together which blended the colors together nicely and made for a plush, stretchy fabric. I liked it so much that I made another one for my Aunt Lorie, who is my godmother:

The yarn is the same in the Roses colorway. They are fun little scarves and Mom and Lorie liked them. For Mema, I knit the Diamond Lace Scarf:

This yarn is Knit Picks Andean Silk in Navy and it is pure heaven to work with. I picked the diamond lace motif from a stitch dictionary, added a seed stitch border and some fringe and I think it came out rather elegant:

Last up is still in progress, the Bobbley Scarf to go with Julia’s Bobbley Hat:

She wants it good and long so I figure I’m a bit more than halfway there. The pattern is just the primary diamond cable and bobbles motif from the hat and columns of 1×1 cables surrounded by seed stitch:

So that’s just about it for all of the holiday gift knitting. I need to finish Julia’s scarf obviously but overall I was pretty pleased with myself for setting reasonable gift knitting goals and meeting them!