FO Friday! Christmas and the Devil's Winter edition

Hello everybody! At long last, here are the things I knitted for Christmas!

I knit this French press cozy for my boyfriend. It keeps your coffee nice and cozy (haha) til you're ready to drink it! This is the pattern I used (and am using for my own French Press cozies (SP?!)). It worked really well! The buttons are because his other French Press has a handle that connects at the bottom. For this one you can just slide it on and off.

My boyfriend is not a weird mannequin head, obviously. He just owns one.

I also knit him this hat using alpaca from a farm we visited this summer. If you're in the Frankfort area, go visit the alpaca. They are TOTALLY adorable, the shop is super cute, and the owners are very nice. I ordered this yarn online and the owner included a personal note letting me know the name of the alpacas that provided the yarn! Such a sweet touch. I sort of used the pattern from this book but with a 1x1 rib. I tried to make the large size first in a stockinette and it came out HUGE:

No good. The hat I mean, my modeling is SUPERB.

So I frogged it and I'm really glad I did. I actually had nightmares about whether or not the finished product would fit (because that's normal) but it did! I love that book as a starting point, but sometimes things come out goofy. I am willing to take the blame, maybe (probably) I'm bad at measuring gauge? Who can say.

I also knit neck-gators for my brother-in-law and my brother-in-law to be. They're like super small infinity scarves with flaps to tuck into your coat or in the case of my dad and bros-in-law, your hunting gear. In the words of my friend Mike, they're basically a knitted dicky. I made one for my dad last year or the year before and he likes it a lot. After I made these my friend Nate asked for one and so did my mom for walking the dog. Probably because we are having The Devil's Winter up here in Michigan and are always cold and covered in snow. Which is great for knitting, but not always so great for other things like driving and not getting frost bite. So it's neck-gators all around! Except for these two, wearing their respective partner's gators:

They have clearly lost their neck-gator privileges.

Phoning in the weekend

Weekend reading about Genghis Khan. Star Wars reference compliments of funny coworker.

Hot weather=cold beer on porches

TVP nachos with locally grown tomatoes and greek yogurt. I could have eaten 3 plates worth.

This is where Henry sits in the morning. NO MATTER WHAT.

If the mug says so...

Hats on babies: cutest thing ever. Who knew?!

Finally finished this mammoth knitting project.

Not pictured: humidity, a couple of great runs, whole wheat pancakes with fresh strawberries, the season and a half (or two...or three..) of How I Met Your Mother that I watched (I had to knit!) and time well spent with my grandpa and grandma.

Phoning in the weekend

This weekend, I discovered Instagram and yeehaw! Such fun was had!

 I also received a very early birthday gift (my birthday is in September. The bonus of having an aunt with taste as totally awesome as my own is that sometimes she finds vintage yellow cannisters she knows you will love and can't wait to give them to you! Aren't they awesome? 

 

Also awesome, Summer Shandy and veggie snacks on a friend's back deck.  

 The next morning, I made iced coffee because it was hot! (Yellow cannisters photo bombing.)

As this picture of Henry clearly demonstrates, we dedicated ourselves to being lazy and crafting on Saturday. 

 Harper concurred. She does not, however, understand that there is no need for her to sit on my lap when it's in the 80's and 90's. I took this picture and then pushed her down.

This is what I was working on. More details to come.

That night I caught up on a week's worth of the Daily Show, Hulu style.

I tried out a new recipe which was only so-so. (But the iced coffee came back. Also, I'm noticing how many yellow dishes I own and I love it.)

Early run before it got too hot. This picture is grossly distorting the length of my legs. Look how far away my feet look!

Met up with Liz and Erica for a craft meeting. There is some great stuff underway! We are getting so organized and prepared!

At Sunday night dinner with my family Evelyn was rocking on the same rocking chair my sisters and I used when we were little kids. I took roughly 17 thousand pictures of her but they were all blurry except for this one because that girl was rocking, if you'll notice the focus in her eyes. She was not sitting like a lady, so much, but when you're in diapers I don't think that's really a requirement.


Not pictured: locking my keys in my car at a gas station and my dad being kind enough to rescue me. That's about it. It was a really wonderful lazy weekend, which I needed. What did you do this weekend?

Hungry cats: nature's alarm clock

Here's what's getting me going this morning on very little sleep:

1) Hungry cats. (there's no sleeping through that)
2) These music videos

3) O'course the coffee

 8 o'clock all the way, baby. I once accidentally referred to it as "8 mile" which has a whole other connotation.