I'm exhausted! I love the holidays but they consume so much energy! This year we have my aunt from San Diego visiting, and last week I had her up at the house for a couple of days. Then she went back to my parents' house, and we joined them all (we even brought the cats) for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Natalie and I decided that this year we were going to do the formal dinner on the eve so that we'd have nothing much to do except open gifts and nap the next day, and my mom admitted it was nicer this way. Even though dinner was at my parents' house, the cooking was up to me and I made a big prime rib with yorkies, potatoes and parsnips, and a red wine gravy. I also made an overnight french toast for breakfast the next day, which we ate while opening presents.

Yesterday I got an email from Jeremy's mom about a collaborative birthday gift they're all planning for his grandmother. We need to take a decent photo of the three of us and send it over because they're putting together a memory quilt full of phots for Grandma's 87th birthday. We'll be visiting them the weekend of her party so we get to see the quilt when she opens it.

In horribly sad news, my Peace Fleece cardigan is just not right. Blocked and half-seamed, I had to face the fact that the armscye doesn't work for me and it sits funny. Usually I work out my own armscye but this time I followed the general numbers for the set-in sleeve pattern in this book. The armscye ended up too shallow which made the sleeve pull a bit and the front didn't fall over my chest the way it should. I'm putting it aside to worry about later. I'll probably frog the whole thing and knit something completely different. I'm spending the rest of the year spinning on my spindle instead.

Happy New Year! See you in 2007.

Okay, right after I wrote my last post I ripped the collar right back to the beginning of the short-row shaping, and started again. The way I was going I definitely wasn't going to have enough yarn and I thought the short-rows were too far apart anyway. I started the shaping 5 stitches before each marker instead of 7 stitches past, and I made the turns every 5 stitches instead of every 7. This saved me a lot of yarn, gave me the same depth of collar and slightly shorter lapels. I was going to steam block the collar with the iron but I decided to just wet block the whole thing again. I figure it'll be easier than fiddling. Pictures tomorrow! (Rochelle, thanks for the offer of the use of some longer needles, but I just couldn't wait until Tuesday.) I have some yarn left, but I don't think it's enough for the belt and loops.

In the meantime, I've been working on my Peace Fleece cardi. I had some trouble with my sleeve cap, but now that's all sorted out and I think it should fit the armscye just fine. So far I've completed the back and one sleeve, and I expect to get the second sleeve done by tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

Remember Starsky? Well, we're going to Jersey in exactly three weeks and I want to bring a new sweater with me. Last night I finally worked out my adjusted sleeve cap shaping and finished knitting the first sleeve. All that's left to do now is knit the cap for the other sleeve, which I can do in about an hour and a half. While I'm doing that I'll have the fronts and back blocking, and hopefully tomorrow I can start the seaming process. Then it's shawl collar time, and I'll give myself two days for that. I've got three weeks, so why the rush? Because I want to also finish my Peace Fleece Cardi. I've knit the back and half of one sleeve so far.

I'm a little bit worried about not having enough yarn to complete Starsky. I just couldn't achieve row gauge. I'm knitting more rows to the inch than the pattern calls for and used up more yarn. I'm positive I'll have enough for the shawl collar, but I might not have enough for the belt. If that's the case, I'll just use some kind of pin to close the cardi in the meantime, and order another skein for the belt. I'm not worried about matching dyelots for something like the belt, I doubt it'll be obvious if the colour is slightly off.

I guess I'd better get cracking. I'm doing dinner in the crockpot tonight and I have to get that set up before I can wash and block anything, because I have to wash my knits in the kitchen sink. I really miss the huge utility sink that my mom has in her basement. It made washing large knits very easy.

My sister wanted to give us a gift for our anniversary this year. She was thinking she'd either give us a gift certificate to a nice restaurant so we could go out for fancy dinner together, or she'd give us money instead so we could buy what we wanted. I yelled, "Yarn!" Jeremy yelled, "Best Buy!"

Jeremy still hasn't decided what to get, but over the weekend I got 8 hanks of Peace Fleece in a very rich reddish brown from Mary's Yarns. Apparently she and her daughter made the trip to Maine and brought back a bunch of colours for the shop. I've, uh, already started a cardi with it. I couldn't help it. It's going to be sort of like an Everyday Cardigan but with some waist shaping and I'm thinking about set-in sleeves. I'm making it up as I go. I can't find my Everyday Cardigan pattern anyway. I'm almost to the underarm shaping on the back already.

Speaking of Everyday Cardigans, I can't find mine. I lost it sometime over a year ago. I vaguely remember putting it away somewhere, but I have no clue where. I really don't think I left it somewhere, I'm sure it's got to be somewhere at my mom's house from before we moved here. Hopefully it'll turn up sometime.

And...today is Freakgirl's birthday! Happy birthday!