Chain Chomp

I didn't know what Chain Chomp was until we made one from paper mache as a Halloween costume. It's a villain from the Mario Brothers games, and seems to be descended from a wrecking ball. That was successful and we moved on to the hat.

It was a quick knit with Plymouth Encore Chunky, and fun to do.

Seville Sweater

This is the Seville Jacket from Oat Couture in Green Mountain Spinnery's Wonderfully Wooly in Lapis Ragg, from Rhinebeck in 2006. I had started it a year ago, but never quite got into the swing of it. I picked it up again after Christmas, and kept going. Unfortunately, my gauge had changed dramatically in that time, and it was too big (even before the gauge change) so I frogged it (after reaching the armholes) and started over.

This time it is flying off the needles, especially for me. I knit both front sections at the same time, and kept track of which was which by tying knots in the cast on remnant - one for the right side, two for the left. I cast on at SnB on Tuesday night, and cast off during the car trip home from my mother's. Next up is the sleeves, which involves knitting a twelve-inch strip of cable, and picking up the stitches along the side and knitting up.

This is the first sweater that I've knit in 20 years, so quite exciting.

But I don't want a new washing machine for Christmas!

It was the Thursday evening before Christmas, when I decided I had to felt the Christmas stocking, or it wouldn't dry in time. I had specific instructions not to make it shrink too much - the bigger the stocking, the more presents it can hold.

So I started the washing machine with a pair of jeans and a dollop of detergent, and let it fill with water. Then in the the stocking, the wash cycle was started, and I waited about five minutes prior to checking on the progress. Now, the usual sight upon opening the lid is the agitator slowing down. This time, it was already stopped. I assumed operator error and tried again. No luck. It finally dawned on me that the washer was broken. The agitator was trying to move, it made all of the appropriate noises, but nothing was getting washed. So, for some unknown period of time, our clothes had been getting soaked and rinsed, but not really washed. This explained some socks with detergent spots on them, and a white turtleneck with more stains when it came out than when it went in. So, bright and early Saturday morning we went off to Lowes, to see what was on sale and in stock. Found a suitable replacement, and had it up and running by Saturday night. I did one load of regular laundry, then felted the stocking. It came out just fine, and dried by Monday night.




My big Christmas present was a triangle loom, that should work really well with handspun, since I'm not sure what to do with all that DH is spinning. I'll post pictures once I try something.



On the regular loom, I finally rethreaded all of the sections that broke, just in time to move the loom so we could put up the tree. The tree is down, and the loom is back in it's usual spot, and next I have to untangle the mess, shown below, and try to wind the warp again. Hopefully there won't be any broken threads this time, cause I haven't figured out Plan B (or is it C) yet.