The long and short of it

Ever since I started going Handmade for the Holidays, my crafting mojo has taken a little holiday of its own from Christmas to the middle of January where I may not even pick up a WIP for a few weeks at a time. It's usually a good time to catch up on some reading that I don't get to do as often as I'd like to anymore. This time, although my mojo did leave there for a while, I completed the scarf for the hubby's cousin G. It is made from Malabrigo Worsted in the Alpine Pearl colorway. I love working with this yarn and flirted with the idea of keeping it for myself for all of 2 seconds when I got the message loud and clear: "this is for G, keep your hands off"! This is how it usually works for me. I start a project (whether it is to simply work the pattern or to use a particular yarn) and the project itself then tells me who it's for... in a manner of speaking. Basically, once I get a feel for the yarn/pattern, that in itself assigns it to a recipient.

My mojo came back to me shortly before little man's eye surgery. I wanted to make him something that he could play with and since he is always stealing my oven mitts, I thought I would knit him up a mitt of his very own.I saw this pattern and thought that it was pretty much what I was looking for, I just wanted to beef it up a bit and make it a little thicker. I modified the pattern by doubling my cotton and using US9's in the round. It worked out alright, but next time I might use a slightly larger needle. Little miss likes it too! That was a very quick knit and while I was on a roll I went ahead and finished the TT2 socks that I started, ahem... about this time last year... for a birthday present. A sock a year, who knew. Maybe it will catch on! There they are being blocked and dried... and ready to ship out. While I was working on little projects, I whipped out a 70's ski hat for a friend of ours T. I modified it a little by increasing the size and adding earflaps. There's a "P" on the other earflap, but I didn't get a photo of it for some reason or another.

Little man's eye is healing up just fine. The redness is fading and now that the swelling has gone down it is starting to move back into place, but we're still not quite there. As you can see... This photo was taken at the Des Moines Botanical Center last weekend. I am getting a little tired of the cold, dry, white, stuck-in-the-house winter so I thought the hubby and I could go on a little mini excursion with the minions to enjoy a little warmth, humidity, and color.
Little man loved it and was running around, checking out different trees and plants. Little miss was a little tired. It was a good time anyway.
I think I mentioned last post that I was participating in Project 366 this year and taking a photo a day. This has proven to be a bit of a challenge with the current Winter season so I have had to become a little creative with how I see things in the house. Here are a few examples. If you're reeaalllly curious you can see the rest of them here. Another little side project for the month included getting my hair cut. 11 inches of this were sent to Locks of Love , leaving this: It's a little draftier than I have been accustomed to lately so I thought I would knit myself a scarf. About 4 inches into it it was clear to me that this scarf would be for my Grandma D. Maybe that will entice her into frequenting the blog. Probably not, but that's alright I suppose:) I have another one in mind for me though, which will be made from some Noro that was gifted to me last Christmas from my SIL K. It will be mine all mine!!!!!

I'll leave you with a peaceful vision.