Merry Christmas!

Smug

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a needle was stirring, because THE SOCKS WERE ALL DONE!

Ha!

Ha!

Ha!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha!

All I have left is a pair for myself, and I am really done. Really, really done.

Hah! Really, one more pair to go!

LazyKid's:
My Dad's:

Half of one of LazyHusband's socks to go, and a pair for me, and I am D-O-N-E done! Which means I'll probably fall and break my wrist tomorrow at the grocery store ;)

Things are coming down to the wire

Okay, so I have a week to finish socks for my father, socks for my husband, socks for my daughter, and socks for me. That's doable, right? groan

And yes, the sidebar is right - I do have THREE PAIRS OF SOCKS on the needles right now. Good thing I've got one pair of worsted, one of fingering, and one of lace-weight yarn, so they all take different size needles. And don't even get me started on the logistics of trying to work on these without the intended recipients seeing their own socks (which is why I've got three pairs going at once, so I have a project appropriate for every spare moment of the day).

Going out of business?

Okay, so if you're at all crafty you have probably heard about this, but it could stand to be repeated here because it WILL impact my business.

The government has recently passed a rather poorly-thought-out law,the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect February 10 2009. On the surface, it sounds good, requiring additional testing of children's toys and equipment to reduce exposure to lead and other harmful substances. Great! I'm all in favor of not poisoning our children.

The problem is, this applies to EVERY toy and children's item, not just those manufactured by large companies or places with histories of problems in the past. And the testing has to be done by an official third-party testing facility, which can charge hundreds of dollars for one test.

So, for example, the tummy time quilts I make to sell on etsy for $18-50 would have to be sent away for testing to make sure the materials and design are safe for kids. Every quilt is made of a unique blend of fabrics and a unique design, so testing one quilt won't apply to all of them. And pretty much every etsy artist who makes things for kids faces the same problem, unless they are large enough that they are mass-producing items (which includes maybe half a dozen etsy folks ... the rest of us make very limited runs of whatever we make). We're stay-at-home moms, crafty parents, owners of small businesses, people who just like to make little stuffed animals. And we're pissed.

Come February, we're going to have to make a choice - quit selling children's items, or be non-compliant and risk major fines and legal entanglements. Personally, I plan to quit selling kids stuff - the most profitable and popular part of my product line - rather than risk getting caught. And I know a lot of etsy folks feel the same way. So next Christmas, good luck finding handmade children's items that don't cost an arm and a leg ...

Unless we can modify the law. If you'd like to learn more about the topic and find a list of ways you can support artists who would be put out of business by CPSIA, pop on over to the round-up on Cool Mom Picks. Write your congressman and senator, contact the folks at the CPSC, sign the online petition, add the button to your blog.

Please take the time to look into the issue and add your voice of support, if you can. Thanks!

May be my next venture

I made these legwarmers for all of the kids in LazyKid's dance class, and they loved them. And at her dance recital tonight I had probably 10 people ask me where I had gotten them ... so I guess I'm going to call the dance studio tomorrow to see if they'd be interested in carrying them with the other dance merchandise they sell in the lobby. Might be a fun little sideline, right?

Parade of socks

We exchanged presents with friends last night, and the socks I made for the kids went over well:

Let's not discuss what it takes to get a three-year-old, a six-year-old, and an eight-year-old to hold still long enough to model socks. Let's just say there were brownies involved and leave it at that, shall we?

I even managed to finish the socks I was working on for their mom, although not until late late late in the evening. Good thing we were spending the night ;)

And I totally dropped the ball on the socks for her husband, which shouldn't take very long but are only a couple of inches along at this point. So far that's the only delinquency in the Season of Sock Madness, though, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

Knocking them out

Finished two pairs of kid socks and one adult sock. Only 2.5 pairs of adult socks and one pair of preschool socks that HAVE to be finished well before Christmas, and then socks for the three of us that I'll be happy to finish by the end of the year.

I might make this after all, especially if that weird hard painful place on my thumb doesn't get any worse.

Custom order - finished!

What happens when someone wants to cross the Irish Hiking Hat with an Andean earflap hat? You get this ...

All details (tassels on braids, pointy top, color scheme) dictated by the customer, so I mainly get credit for figuring out how to combine three or four separate patterns and get one hat. Plus, I learned how to make a fleece lining for the hat, so between that and the really thick wool of the hat itself, the wind and snow don't stand a chance against this sucker.

Recipients

Boy, I bet my sister-in-law is glad she got a pedicure before she came home for Thanksgiving :)

Doing the happy dance

Finished!

The socks that I need for tomorrow were finished last night!

And I'm not starting any more socks until our car trip on Sunday!

Shameless cross-promotion

One of my friends has an etsy shop that hasn't had its first sale yet, despite her attractive products and reasonable prices. Check her out, and if you buy something, tell her LazyMama sent you!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5846926

Hah! One more pair to go!

Socks for my mother-in-law.

My daughter the artist

Yeah, that's pretty much what a "yarn store" looks like when she gets done with it, all right.

Binding tutorial now up on my new flickr account!

Check it out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32382769@N08/sets/72157608893740830/

Should take you to a set where the descriptions of the photos tell you how to do a standard quilt binding in 10 easy steps.

Feel free to leave feedback here or there - I'm always anxious to improve my work!

Tummy Time on the Prairie - done! (except for the pattern)

This is a 30"x30" tummy time activity quilt. Currently the actual quilt is for sale in my etsy store, and I'm pleased to announce that KITS for this pattern will be up later this week, if the horrid illness that's crippling my daughter's lungs doesn't strike me down, too. Yeah, like it's going to pass me by! That would be a miracle ...

More socks

WIP: For my newest brother-in-law, knit with tiny sock yarn on size 1 needles, so it's going to take forever, but at least the pattern is cool:

Finished remarkably quickly: socks for my father-in-law, knit from Wool-Ease worsted weight on size 5 needles, so it took less than a day of knitting to finish each one (huzzah!)

Not a sock, but it's made of sock yarn: a sweater that I've decided I dislike enough to frog it before I get farther than the 6" of the body that I've already done. Darn, I like the stitch, I like the yarn ... I just don't like them together. Oh, well - I guess I can make a boatload of socks with the five skeins of this that I now have without a project in mind ;)

Work and play

Yeah, so my mother's socks are in the can.

Pattern: Jaywalker, by Grumperina - sort of. I did plain feet, then jaywalkered the legs.

Yarn: Cascade Fixation Spray Dyed/Effects (a cotton sock yarn) in Colorway 9939.

Needles: US 2 dpns

It's a fun, easy pattern that yields a nice firm sock. I'm not sure how well it would work for the whole sock for those of us with giant ankles, but the leg-only approach seems to fit well.

Now, about work. I've been making little diaper bags using panels from the "Peek A Boo" line by Amy Bradley for Moda fabrics. They're super-cute, but I don't have any photos yet. Hopefully tomorrow, if LazyKid will cooperate and watch some Sesame Street for an hour or so :)

Seriously

1. I decided to make people socks for Christmas presents. Wait - actually, I decided to make EVERYONE socks for Christmas presents. Each pair takes at least 16 hours of knitting time. If I make one for every person with whom we normally exchange gifts, that's 15 pairs of socks. WTH was I thinking? I'm going to be knitting like a maniac from now until 12:01am December 25th. On the positive side, at least I have an excuse to try out some of the 14,000 sock patterns I've favorited on ravelry.

2. When did it become impossible to find the end inside the ball of yarn? I like to pull from the center so the ball doesn't roll all over the floor gathering cat hair, but I'm on my second completely disasterous skein situation. Usually you can reach a finger inside the ball, pull out a small chunk at the end of the skein, and find the end. But recently when I reach inside I end up pulling out a tangled mass of spaghetti that's the size of a lemon, and I still can't find the end. So I either have to reroll the whole skein, or just pull from the outside. Until I get my ball winder, I'm letting that puppy roll around on the floor. Friends don't mind a little cat hair in their socks, right? It just adds extra insulation ...