much holiday distraction!

Because I'm on the costume committee for my kid's dance club, I'm making some blouses for the older girls. Trying to get three of these done by Sunday evening is cutting into my valuable knitting time!



They're not at all difficult, just time consuming, and the gussets under the arms are annoying. However, the dancers need them for free movement, and I'm pretty sure nobody wants to experience the embarrassment of having your underarms rip while on stage.

I did manage to salvage complete a few near disasters objects: the Rimrock Cape turned into a simple, but comfy moebius scarf. It turned out looser and springier than my first moebius, even if it was a similar weight yarn knit on the same size needles and same number of stitches. The yarn itself is pretty springy, and perhaps the diagonal knit/purl stitch pattern made the fabric more elastic. This one can be wrapped twice around the neck like a cowl, or half a loop pulled up like earwarmers.



Pattern: Rimrock cape (collar portion) from Cat Borhdi's Treasury of Magical Knitting with Painted Yarn in colorway Midnight Garden. Size 10 Boye circular needles to make apx 50" length, 130 stitches MCO

And the Freakishly Large Christmas Stocking cuff turned into a Freakish Large Beret:



Pattern was orginally Christmas in Tallin, morphed into the beret from Gwen Steege's Knit Socks!, size 4 and 6 circular needles, Briggs and Little Regal.

But really, it is ridiculously large, and at first I despaired that it could only be used as a variety of household objects, such as a poinsettia cozy:



or a medicine cabinet:



or a stuffie bed:



or a fruit bowl:



To comfort myself, I'm making another pair of socks from remnants, and Conwy from Nancy Bush's Knitting on the Road. I had my doubts about this yarn, because I was worried that the colour changes would hide the stitch pattern, but the hues are soft and heathery enough that the twisted vine cable shows up fairly well, especially when the sock-in-progress is tried on - the cables pop out nicely then.



The pattern asks you to decrease to 60 stitches, and though I tried that, I quickly realized there's no way a cabled pattern is going to be comfortable on my leg with that number of stitches on a size 1 needle. So I ripped back to 64 stitches and will go from there. I say "my leg", but I really mean my friend's leg, who is pretty close to me in proportion. I only have one friend that will genuinely appreciate a handknitted pair of socks - so they're for her.

In the queue:
some sort of legwarmers, since I froze pretty much every part of my body last week (-17 C here, ugh)
Mittens for myself and the kids - ditto

Really, I should just drape myself and my family in hanks of wool from now till June. Four strong winds just won't stop blowing in Alberta, most particularly, from the Arctic!