Yay!

 I got the tree up this year before Christmas Eve! A WEEK AND HALF before Christmas Eve, to be exact. I'm so proud of myself. *pats self* 

I'm not going to bother to try and take a 'picturesque' photo of it though because it's impossible. Large sunny window + killer huge tv that can be seen from space on one side = no good angles for proper photo taking. Plus, I'm not dedicated enough to have a theme tree so I'm not sure how photo worthy it is anyway. I pick up a few ornaments every year to add to the mess, take out a few as the years go on...........it's a mix of everything and nothing but I wouldn't have it any other way. lol

Here a few new ones for this year:

How cute is this? I got this off of an Etsy seller. Looks just like the  hubby in his moon suit bee keeper suit! Super adorbs!

Simple ones from Target but I love their knitty-ness. They look/feel like they were fashioned out of old Fair Isle sweaters or something. Now THAT I can get behind.

And here are my kitties, in clay form. Robyn did a post last week showcasing a whole bunch of crafty kitty ornaments made for her by people and it made me pouty not to have any crafty kitties too so I found a bunch on Etsy and................good god I don't have $15 each to spend on crafty kitties on Etsy! They are lovely but no. Sorry. I'll have to plan for that during the year, one at a time. So when I was at Michael's last week for something else, I hit up the clay aisle and got some supplies to make up my own gang of kitties. For less than $15, I made up a Meisha, Mooshie, and Maggie kitty plus something else that can't be shown because it's a gift. :)

Meisha says: Uhhhh, like, my nose isn't pink though? 

Me: Sorry, bbs. I didn't buy any black so pink had to do. 

Meisha: Pfffftt!

Of course, now I have all this leftover clay because I only used up the ivory pack. What to do with it?!? lol My 'career' as a clay artist (sooooooooooooo kidding!!!) was short-lived because rolling out the clay balls DECIMATED my hands. My middle knuckle, palm side, was inflamed and owie for two days afterwards. No more clay crafts for me. It's now DAYS later and my inner palms, where the joints are, are STILL a little hurty if I press on it. :(

It's always fun to bring on the cross-stitch ornaments too, here are two are my favs, a JCS ornie and a L*K one:

I have so so so so many less than I would like to have though. I totally, miserably, horrendously FAILED on that front this year. Need to rethink crafty goals for next year. Hmm.........

And finally, look at this super great birthday gift that Cookie A. sent me. A loverly skein of cashmere infused yarn and an organic cotton sock drawstring bag. So very very thoughtful of her to think me of like that when she's so busy flitting around the world doing super-important knitting things and..............OK so this is really just the last installment of the 2011 Sock Club......that was sent out to hundreds of people, not just me. A girl can have her delusions, right? :)

Patch job success!

From these holey heels:

To two new life-saving patches:

Annnnnnnnnd my favorite pair of socks are back in action for a little while longer.

I even had some of the original yarn left in my cupboard to use for the darning! (Though, obviously, we've got some MAJOR fading going on here over the three years these socks have been in use.) 

You basically use a lot of duplicate stitching with a regular sewing needle to 'fill' the hole. The heel with the totally disintegrated stitches was a bear to do, not gonna lie. (Creating new knit stitches out of thin air is NOT fun). That one is clearly not as neat as the other but I'm fairly certain it will hold so I'm happy with it. I can always get back in there and widen it a bit if needed.

HUGE thanks to Jackie for pointing me in the direction of Knit Picks darning tutorials.They worked like a charm. :)

Note to self:

Never ever ever get this behind in paperwork again. 

Ever.

Never.

I thought I had just been slacking since February. Urmm......how about mid-January? Yeah, it was bad. My right shoulder was completely numb by the time I was done from all the typing, typing, typing, typing. On the positive side, I can't get into TOO much trouble between now and October when I need to do my taxes with the town so those will be a snap to do this year.

The only thing better than finally tackling all that is...

...finishing one of the mittens up. And take a look at that THUMB. That might just be the neatest thumb join I've done. I keep finding myself staring at it, I'm so impressed. (Thumbs can be tricky!) 

Now I just have to whip up another one just like it. *sigh*

First pair of socks for 2011.

Don't be too impressed though because I started them right after Xmas so they are really a 50% 2010 finish and 50% 2011 finish. :) 

I really should ALWAYS have a simple ribbed pair of socks going on a pair of circular needles because you can really bang these guys out without even trying hard doing them two at a time. I don't know why they seem to 'bend' time doing them that way but they do and it does. (Good grammar be damned. Heh.) 

I just got in another set of #1 circs from Knit Picks so maybe I can stick to that. (Not that it REALLY matters in the long run how many socks I do but I *do* have a veritable MOUNTAIN of sock yarn living in plastic bins under my guest bed. So, you know. It should be used as much as possible. Eye on the prize. Stay focused, etc.)

(Photo credit to Smitten Kitchen )

In totally unrelated news, if you love ribs you REALLY need to check out this recipe from Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. HOLY BE-JAYSUS BOY HOWDY they are good. I mean really really good. I only used one rack of ribs (approx. 2lbs.) so I halved all the spices, cooked them for five hours at 200 degrees (instead of splitting it up at 200/175 over 6 hours) and they were PHENOMENALLY GOOD. You will impress people with your mad cooking skillz good! They are BEYOND easy to make too - you just need to plan ahead so you can get them in the oven before noon if you want to eat them for supper that day. :)