First Signs of Encroaching Winter

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday, I certainly did. My family came up and we sat around for almost a week straight, knitting, eating and playing cards. I traded my mom the pastel ball of mountain goat for a few additions to my sportweight alpaca stockpile and I received not one, but TWO handknit scarves for my birthday (which is in march, but she made up for it by doubling the bounty).

I made progress on my zipped raglan. Even though it's nowhere near finished, I'm okay with it. Unfortunately I spent all morning writing a paper, so the light outside kind of sucks for taking pictures, so we'll just have to look at a picture from Thanksgiving morning:



That, my friends, is real live snow. Now, many of you who live in colder climates could give a damn about a few flakes of snow, but I, a transplanted southerner, was enamoured with the powdery stuff. Yes, it snows in the south sometimes, but it's much more like lumpy rain than bonafide snow. I'm sure that in my eighth month of winter I'll be less impressed with snow, but for now it sure is pretty. Well, it would be if it hadn't melted the next day.

And look! Jill likes it:



Likes/ Hates; Terror/ Tomato.

I bought the new Son of a Stitch n Bitch this weekend and I am absolutely enthused! Who would have guessed that non-ugly/tacky/dorky men's knitwear patterns existed? I really did find like twelve things I want to make.

Oh by the way, Thumbs down to interweave knits for leaving out even the perfunctory men's pattern in the winter issue. Yes we get it. Women knit. Men can check back in 6 months to see if there's something available then.

Oh well. At least Debbie Stoller's got my back.

I've been on a crash course, heading straight into the end of the semester for the past few weeks. Crit week is 13 days away and I've been in the studio cranking out as much work as possible. I still have a long way to go, but I'll get there.



The sleeve for the zipped raglan is just about done. I want to knit it a few inches longer so it will cover my long monkey arms, but that won't take any time at all. I was really hoping to get this sweater finished by Thanksgiving, but that may not be entirely possible. My entire family is coming from Hotlanta to visit us next week, so hopefully I'll be able to get all of the knitting on the sweater done before school starts the next Monday.

I bought some yarn for my winter hat today to replace the Mountain Goat of easter egg brilliance.



It's malabrigo and the shade is called Autumn forest (224). While yes, it's varigated, the colors are so muddy one would be hardpressed to call it unmanly. I need to find a good pattern for it. I'm thinking the Army Girl Earflap Hat from Interweave knits. (I really tried to get the link to work and it was ugly. Trust me.) Mine, however will just be the Army Earflap Hat, 'cause that's how I roll. I need to knit a swatch to see if I should double my yarn or not. I really don't want to have to buy new needles, but I may just have to bite the bullet.

What will happen with the Mountain Goat, you ask? I think it'll end up being a pair of socks for my mom. We'll see if I can knit a pair in the 8 days between the end of the semester and Christmas. Oh the joys of holiday knitting.

Speaking of the holidays, I bought some ornaments for our first Christmas in Chicago.



They're made out of what I assume to be tiny gourds. The owl belongs to Andrew and this one is mine:



That is a wild-eyed panda if I ever saw one.