Happy New Year!

Whew, made it through the holidays but I still feel like I have too much to do. We've been traveling a bit, playing a bit, working a bit and I've been knitting a bit.

First the traveling. Spent a few days up in one of my favorite places in the world, the north shore of Lake Superior. We packed up the Manchild, the dog, the snowboard and other snow related stuff and headed up. Unfortunately, there wasn't any more snow there than here. Fortunately, there is a nice ski resort there that makes their own snow. The Manchild got a new snowboard for Christmas so he was anxious to try it out.

It was a bizarre sight to see so much open water in late December. Lake Superior normally freezes over in the winter, but not this year. Ok, neighbor, can you say "Global warming?" I knew that you could. No ice, no snow. I think I still live in Minnesota.

And yes, I have been knitting! I'm working on two main projects: an Irish Hiking Scarf, which is my first attempt at cables, and -- a big challenge -- designing my own pattern.

The Irish Hiking Scarf is tons of fun and it's turning out beautifully (pictures soon). I like it so much that I've already bought yarn for the next one. The pattern design project is a hat for the Manchild. Before Christmas we were out shopping and he bought a hat that "everyone has." It's called a visor beanie and is a basic hat with a plastic visor knit into the brim. It cost twenty three dollars. Yes, you read that right. Twenty-three dollars for a knit beanie. So, I've been trying to figure out how to make one. I've searched the web and couldn't find anything that was quite right, so I decided to try to make one. Now, having never knit anything without a pattern, this is new territory. But, hey, how hard can it be?

Well, I've already ripped it out twice. Third time's the charm. I'm having trouble getting the decreases to come out right. It's either too short or looks a bit like a stovepipe. The third attempt will be juuuuust right.

I'm in the process of wrapping up the SP9 swap. I sent my spoilee a small pre-Christmas box, but still need to put one more together. The other swap I'm doing is a mitten kit swap and I still have to decide which pattern I'm going to send, but I have to pull that one together very soon. Once I get those finished, I think I'm going to take a break from swaps for awhile.

Speaking of swaps, I received my last box from my Secret Pal. I have pics but I can't post them tonight, so that will have to wait. Thanks, SP9!!

And last, but not least, it finally snowed!!! Only a few inches, but I'll take it!