Distracted Knitter

Hello, Kendra here checking in from California! It's finally starting to feel like winter (Bay Area style at least) with the temperature dropping to the 30's at night and Christmas lights all around the neighborhood. I can't believe how close Christmas is! In my family we pretty much have a no-gift policy but I'm still thinking of making a few small things - actually teeny-tiny things - in the shape of small knitted magnets. Using the patterns in Anna Hrachovec's Teeny Tiny Mochimochi, I knit the little critters and then put a magnet inside when I'm stuffing them. It took some searching to find the right magnets, but the super-strong metal ones are working well. They are proving to be great gift knitting because they only take an hour or two each and it's encouraging to keep knitting them because of how cute they turn out!

These monkeys were made for a friend of mine for his birthday. He's a zookeeper and works with primates, so monkey magnets seemed like the obvious choice. The funniest part to me is that the tan one turned out looking slightly evil, something about his eyes...

Unfortunately, my Llama Hood is being a bit neglected as I work on these tinies and some other projects, but I have made some progress, finally finishing the 28" of seed stitch!

It's time to move onto the hood increases, but I've been distracted by other projects instead. One distraction continuing progress on my much-neglected Estelle Cardigan, made in my beautiful Tart MadTosh DK. I decided to knit the sleeves 2-at-a-time and before I knit the rest of the body for two reasons:

1. It's much easier to knit top-down sleeves before the body is completed so you don't have a finished sweater in your lap while you try to knit sleeves.
2. I hate knitting sleeves! They take forever and they are soooo boring! I'm actually excited to knit the body and collar so that served as motivation - if I finish the sleeves I can knit the body as a reward. Then the finished sweater is that much closer to being done!

I finished the sleeves (finally!) and now I'm back to the body. This really is going to be a lovely sweater.

Additionally, I've suddenly become an obsessed sock knitter! I found some very cool MCN sock yarn at Michael's of all places and it inspired me to finally knit some new socks. I'm making them pretty simple - worked a rounded toe using these instructions, then working a 2x1 rib across the top of the foot. I'm doing an after-thought heel so I can just keep happily knitting along without gusset shaping. I'm already past the heel on one sock and making my way up the foot of the second (I work back and forth between the first and second sock as I go - that way I remember what I did so they match, and I avoid the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome!) I'm pretty happy with how they are looking so far!

Alright, time to say goodbye - all this talk about knitting has my fingers itching to keep at it! Just have to decide which is going to get my attention for now...