Okay, the real post (lots of pics)

So, first off, this was my accomplishment for the day:

I'm excited, it's my first "real" Christmas tree. It doesn't have my family ornaments on it, of course, those are at my parents house and I feel they should be on that tree there until I start having Christmases in my own home with my own family. For those that voiced their concerns and good wishes, if you look closely in the bottom left, you'll see:

The vet says he's okay. He didn't hear anything strange in the breathing - since Teddie only makes the noise when he's very relaxed or asleep, and shows no signs of actually being out of breath, the vet feels it may be a kitty version of snoring. I'll definitely keep an ear on it, though. The blood in the litter box is more worrisome, and he's on antibiotics to fight any possible infections he may have. Since he's exhibiting no other symptoms there either, they feel it is just a simple infection, possibly brought on by the roundabout exposure to Chrissy's kitty, who also just got diagnosed with a cold. We'll try the antibiotics and see if that helps. Meanwhile, if you saw me at the vet, you'd think I'd been torturing the poor cat, the way he cries in his carrier. I kept getting the strangest looks from other people. Sigh. They say pets are like kids - now I know how all those mothers of crying babies feel! Teddie has, by the way, shown no interest in the Christmas tree, other than sleeping under it. There are some familiar faces on the tree, though:

You may remember these guys from last year.
These are the stockings I made last year from the patterns at Annie's Woolens. The snowman one is stranded, the holly one is woven, a la the Philosopher's Wool method. They were supposed to be Steve and I's stockings. Well, now they're both mine and I'm using them on my tree. So there. *pbbbt*



More current knits include these:

Dishcloths and unfelted clogs. The observant among you will note that the clogs are obviously not from the same pair. The green is one of Kelly's, the grey is one of Dad's. The reason for that being that Katie can't read (again!) and ordered the wrong amount of wool in each color to make a second one of Kelly's clogs to match the first. I also made the same mistake with Mom's, and ended up ordering more wool since white slippers with blue trim, in a house with these three:

plus two more cats won't stay very pretty for very long. I do, however, have enough of the colors of Dad's to make a full pair, although the colors are inversed of what I had originally said they would be. The very observant will also note that the multicolored dishcloth is not knit. It's crocheted. I finally bit the bullet and learned. It's okay. Crochet does go faster, but to me it's a clunkier looking fabric. I'd definitely be interested in doing an afghan with it at some point, though.

Just a side note on the clogs, I still haven't received the pattern I ordered online. The KnitPicks yarn arrived on Friday. I placed the order on Tuesday. This is why I like KnitPicks, no matter what other people say. So, how did I start working on the clogs already? I happened to find the pattern at my LYS on a random stroll-by Friday. Apparently the LYS *is* good for something, who knew?

And, finally, the pretty blue socks are for Mom. I started them tonight. I can only do chunky knitting for so long, and I love this yarn. I'm doing these cuff down, since her feet are only very slightly smaller than mine. I'm also thinking about doing Dad's socks cuff down as well. His first sock, aka the bane of my sock knitting existence, is this one:

There's a lifeline in the sock at 8.5" from the toe from the amount of times I've frogged the stupid heel. I'm seriously considering frogging the whole thing and doing them cuff down so I can do a flap and gusset heel on them as well. I think Dad would like the look of that type of heel better, anyway. They just might not get their socks in time for Christmas. The clogs will be done, though. It takes me a little over a day to make one of the men's large size. They are an easy knit, although I have to admit that the short row shaping on the soles gets wearing fast.

I've introduced one of my interns to Danica. She wanted to learn entrelac really badly. She knows how to knit, and how to follow a pattern, but she has trouble reading the pattern sometimes. Somehow she's ended up with almost a garter stitch version of it, and extra stitches after the final base triangle. No idea how she managed that. She doubled the pattern so she could fold it in half and make a bag out of it eventually, but that shouldn't have affected anything. I'll have to have her walk me through what she did to figure out where she went wrong.

Anyway, I've ranted long enough, but at least there are pictures this time. I still haven't gotten my confirmation for Stitches West. Sigh. I want to get my stuff! You have no idea how excited I am about going! Oh, and I might be able to see my friend in the AF again this weekend. That would be nice! And Chrissy is organizing a stage management department day trip to Disneyland next Monday. Should be fun!