Antique finds

A few weeks ago I checked out the Gurnee antique center for the first time. That place is huge!

Among many other finds, they had a few buckets with lots of yarn bobbins.  One place had a ton of wooden spools.  Really cute, if I could figure out a way to use them.  Ideas?

Things that make you go "hmm."

too small

One of E's christmas gifts:  Socks.  

Yarn:  Regia bamboo color

Pattern:  "Waffle weave," from Charlotte Schurch

Size:  Already too small!  :O

easy ornaments

Michaels has started selling clear plastic ornaments finally - a boon for us folks with young kids in the house.  I made these in a minute with some leftover weaving ends.  The blue one has remnants of the shawl I made for Paris, and the pink/brown one has remnants of a scarf I made for my friend Thuy in Victoria.

My MIL said that her stitching group used all their embroidery thread ends to make ornaments like these to decorate a tree for a hospital.  What a great idea!  Has anyone heard of a similar need locally?

counting sheep

Christmas present flannel jammies!  Thank you to my SIL!

Elving

Finished just in time for a certain little boy's stocking!

Pattern:  The Mean Red Bird

Yarn:  Cascade 220 (red), Simply soft acrylic (beige belly, orange beak, black eyebrows)

The Green Pig

Yarn:  Simply soft (green)

Edited to add:  Christmas day photo:

oh, the structures we can build!

Happy holidays!

Look!  A knitted Christmas tree!

Unreasonable Love

I have developed an unreasonable crush on this sock pattern (Spur by Kate Gilbert in the Winter 2011 Twist Collective).

It’s gorgeous (heel stripe! organic but not flowery patterns! turned hem in contrasting color!) and looks insanely complicated to knit (how big is the chart, I wonder). But, oh my, the pattern calls for tiny size 1 (2.25mm) needles. It would take me years and years to knit these....