Hose for Helinka

So they are not exactly hose but just simple socks. I am hoping that my grandma Helen will enjoy them. Although not a knitter herself, my grandma is an incredible seamstress and quilter and has a fine eye for beautiful handcrafted things.


My coworker was kind enough to model these socks for me as grandma has a dainty size 5 foot and I,(being the freak result of hybrid vigor?) have the feet of an WNBA player without the height or athletic grace to accompany them.

Test Knitting and Belated Christmas Gifts

These are hand warmers of my own design from some hand painted yarn that a friend asked me to test knit for him. They have a wonderful texture with the seed stitch and are now on display at my LYS, the Naked Sheep.


My hubby ordered me a new yarn swift and ball winder for Christmas. It was my only request, unfortunately he placed his order pretty late and they were back ordered so I just received it on Sunday. I have so much sock yarn to wind!

'Roid Rage

I was happily in bed, knitting along to a movie, having a very mellow Friday night when I heard a rustle. I live with three dogs (one of which is a 9 month old puppy) and my ears have become very keen to OK noises and not good noises. This was a suspicious one to say the least.
I went into the living room to find my 11 year old Tempest chewing up my knitting basket and drooling and chewing on the balls of yarn within that she had spilled across the living room floor.
After assessing the damage, the dog, who was previously being coddled due to her post surgery status was hastily corralled with the other two in the non yarn parts of the house.
How does this happen you may wonder that an 11 year old dog decides to go on a late night yarn ravaging binge? I was wondering the same thing myself so I consulted with the veterinarian this morning. Tempest has been on steroids for 7 months which has altered her definition of edible drastically but thus far not so much as to include her mother's favorite hobby. She also had surgery ten days ago which clearly has given her Herculean powers to destroy and consume all that gets on her nerves.
The vets conclusion was that she is feeling a bit stir crazy! Sure OK that makes some sense, when I am stir crazy I reach for the knitting, not with my canines but we express ourselves differently Tempest and I, we always have. So, today I will take her for a nice walk and try to let this one go. She is not however to be trusted with the stash unsupervised ever again.

More Finished Socks

I love the way these pooled similarly! There are more photos below in my gallery.

Pattern: Basic top down ribbed sock
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight, colorway 'Christmas Rock'
Needles: US Size 2 dpn

So here are a couple finished projects and a bonus photo of the new puppy Pedro. There are descriptions of each project on my Flickr page Courtney Knits, see photo gallery.

Snow day and Finished Objects

We had a snow storm today, around 3 inches of snow. In Portland that is a crippling amount of snow. Here are some photos of my dogs and husband playing in the snow.