Update from Closer to the Edge

This is a fast one, since I’m headed for another round of parties today. (Somehow we are roped into thirteen of them this year. I thought it was twelve, but it turns out to be thirteen, and I’m trying not to think about that. I have been reprising my award winning role as “Joe’s Wife” at many of them, and have only been called Mrs. Dunphy once. The ones today won’t have much knitting at them, but things are coming along anyway, I think.

almostdonesocks 2015-12-18 allthreehats 2015-12-18

I know those pictures look a lot like the last batch, but the astute among you will note that all three hats are done (only one more hat to go!) and that there is the second sock of the pair, and I don’t care how many parties I have to go to today, there’s just no way that the pair isn’t going to be completed today. (I know, I shouldn’t have said that.) That leaves just one more pair of socks, a pair of slippers, and….. well. A sweater. Still, the worlds top knitwear model has agreed to help do the baking and some of the wrapping tomorrow, and I feel like it’s possible that the light I see at the end of the tunnel might not be a train.

Monday – that’s when I’ll know for sure. Hang in there knitters!

100 thoughts on “Update from Closer to the Edge

  1. The world’s top knitwear model is also the Harlot’s Rescue by Elf Operation. Three cheers for Samantha! Elfop? Has a certain ring to it.

  2. It makes me feel grinch-like that your state of knitting makes me feel better about mine. I only have a scarf left to cast on, knit, cast off and wrap. But I share this with you – for my friend in Victoria and her two teenage daughters, I have made some lovely fingerless gloves. They have, until glove #6, gone on and off the needles without a hitch. Glove #6 is possessed. Dropped stitches, added stitches, messed up the pattern beyond belief, tinking and frogging. I calculated last night that I have now knit this damn glove 3 times. So today on the train, I’m smugly zipping along, knowing I only have a few more rounds until I can cast it off…and I see it. A dropped stitch about 20 rows down from where I am knitting. I almost threw the glove and my needles across the train. Knitting is not supposed to invoke rage! If I didn’t need to get this parcel in the mail by last Monday, I’d find humour in this whole business.

  3. Thirteen parties?! That’s seriously festive. I tried to go to a party last weekend, but my toddler wouldn’t allow it – all he wanted to do was cuddle (I suspect some kind of viral thing was making him feel a bit lousy). LoOking forward to the day my children will be called as elf rescue!

  4. I hear you on the “Mrs Dunphy” thing- although my partner and I get eachother’s names about equally. I do love hearing people call him “Mr. O*****” and then getting to use the response “oh, he’s Mr. W*****, neither of us changed our names”.

    • Why not! I know two Heather Brown’s. Born decades apart, both their maiden names. One changed on marriage (in the 1950s, and the other didn’t – married in the 1980s).

      • I’m not Mrs. Brown either. DH has a very common name, I do not. Two of my closest friends also married men with the surname Brown and none of us changed our names.

    • My inlaws insisted on addressing birthday cards to Mrs. J*** and making out gift checks to Kathryn J*** even though I didn’t change my name. (That gave me the excuse to say that I accept checks made out to Kathryn AnythingYouWant.) They finally relented, kinda, after I gave them grandchildren.

    • I never took my husband’s name because I am named after my grandfather- same first, same last. I still, however, get mail addressed to Mrs. Blank… to which I always wonder: Why am I getting my mother-in-law’s mail?

  5. Any chance the intended sweater-recipient would enjoy a shrug-style garment? Or better yet, a vest-style-shrug-style garment?!? =) Or maybe a scarf?!??!

  6. I don’t share the last name of my husband of 33 years. Have always liked mine better! Just realized that Joe Dunphy was the name of my son’s kung fu sensei 25+ years ago.

  7. Ouch, on the name thing. I still feel wierd whenever I get called “Mrs. P–“, it makes me feel about 20 yrs older than I am. I would have kept my last name too if I was in danger of being called anything that sounds like ‘Mrs. Dumpy’.

  8. I know I just commented, but something just happened I had to share. I’m finally on the end of the 15 dozen sugar cookies I need for tomorrow, and just going to start the icing. I went to pick up the tray of unbaked cookies where they were chilling on the back porch, and half of them were gone! I look around to see if maybe I dropped them without noticing, and see the squad of 5 squirrels running away with hunks of dough. The furry b\*stards. And there’s a paw print in one on the tray! So now I have to dump a the rest of them, cause who wants squirrel slobber. Ugh. I think this means I have to mix up more dough.

    Here’s hoping everyone else’s projects go without a hitch. Happy Holidays to The Blog.

  9. Could you send the Elf south? I still need to wrap stuff, and bake stuff and I am supposed to be working tonight, tomorrow the night after then Tuesday and Wednesday. I don’t think that this is going to work for me.

  10. Thanks so much for the update!

    My Christmas burden is starting to lift, because I’ve got to the point where I begin throwing things off the list (or at least dumbing them down) with wild abandon.

    As soon as you think of something much smaller to replace the sweater (see knitted Advent calendar items?) you’ll be home free!

  11. You are amazing. That you take time out of all you got going on to update us is well…really wonderful. You are keeping me fired up and I am chugging through my mom’s fair isle sweater. Then it’s on to felted slippers for my son. We can do this!

  12. I finished fixing the second of a pair of fingerless mitts late last night (I am giving them to my friend today, because they were for her birthday almost a year ago); the second mitt had gone rogue, gauge-wise, and required extensive frogging and reknitting. I then picked up the first mitt, to admire it and its perfect adherence to gauge, and I noticed that there were LIVE STITCHES poking out of the cuff where, beyond all odds, the yarn had broken. There is such a thing as a cursed project, right?

  13. You go girl!!! I work in a knit shop and I think that the definition of optimism is the person who came in on Christmas Eve last year at 3 pm to buy yarn to make a Christmas present….there is ALWAYS someone more behind than you are!

  14. I can rap for you!

    “This woman named Steff
    She knits at top speed
    But a week’s worth of days
    Is her current greatest need…”

    Wait, did you say rap or wrap?

  15. I’m so glad I decided to pass on Christmas this year. Reading this makes me even gladder that I am not participating. I got the ‘flu again last week, for the second year running, though I’m OK, thanks, and not at death’s door like last year. However, my house is in foreclosure and I don’t believe the mortgage department at the bank that made 6 Billion dollars in profits last year can have read A Christmas Carol. Perhaps I should mail them a copy. Oddly, I am undismayed and not really sure why. Perhaps it’s the boundless optimism that seems to belong to the celebration of the Winter Solstice. To me, it signals renewal and rebirth, the return of the light, and I just can’t help thinking that applies to me, too, in a very personal sense. I just sold a whack of my knitting so there is gas in the van, and food on the table. Who knows what’s just around the next corner? as my dear mother used to say.

      • Three wishes for you: 1) that your optimism carries you through, 2) that things improve for you even before the winter solstice, and 3) that there is also lots of yarn in your van. (I had to touch the truck for this one. Too funny).

          • Thank you to everyone for the good wishes. I’m hanging in and hoping and praying, but I also found another source of consolation in that I dragged out of its hiding place a sweater I started for my son a LONG time ago, which only needs sleeves. Lots of plain soothing rounds and rounds of knitting with the occasional decrease row, so I’m set for the holidays.

  16. A party without knitting? Doesn’t sound like much of a party to me 🙂
    On the subject of surnames, my husband and I combined elements of our maiden names to form a new name. Works for us, although people still get confused as to why he doesn’t have the same surname as his parents.
    I’m happy being Mrs, as long as I get my own forename. I just don’t look like a Timothy…

  17. It’s been a bumpy and highly entertaining ride! Thanks for sharing your xmas craziness with us. It’s like watching a really close football (enter your own favorite sport) game. =) Come on! You can do it!!! Go!!!! KNIT!!!!

  18. You can totally do that much knitting in a week. It would be too much for me – I have one manageable pair of mittens left – but you’ll be down to just the sweater by the end of the weekend.

  19. Today I can see the hats. I love them. And that yarn for the socks is luscious. I am going to have to look back at the last day or so and see what yarn it is. It looks soft and I like how they are shaping up. You got this!

  20. Good job on the hats, they really look great. If you’re just at the parties in the capacity of Joes wife then why can’t you knits the socks there? You can totally knit and maintain eye contact.

  21. Is it true that the sweater recipient has hit a growth spurt and is now a size 58L???

    (singing) “Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day. . .”

  22. Keep on rocking the yarns! Finally got a clothes washer and dryer today on the farm. They aren’t hooked up yet, nut there is a light at the end of my tunnel too! No more schlepping the laundry through the wringer washer then out to the line in below zero weather!
    One stitch at a time.
    Louise

  23. I so admire your knitting speed. I’m only trying to knit a single sweater in 3 weeks and still wondering if I’m going to make it. Or course, the sweater is for my 6’2″ husband, and I’m keeping it a secret from him, which gets harder after today since he is on vacation until the new year.

    • I just read about a woman who accidentally got locked in a bathroom for 4 days and used the time to knit a scarf. I figure stephanie could get all her projects done and a year’s worth of socks if that happened to her!

  24. Whoo hoo, 13 parties! Think of it as one for each of the 12 days of Christmas and 1 to grow on. You don’t want to knit at these parties anyways, gotta leave your hands free for a mug of eggnog and a slice of fruit cake.
    I love that hat!

  25. Love those hats! And I’m joking the ranks of slightly crazed knitters, not looking at the date, because I just cast on a (small, easy) shrug that I realized I need for my Christmas dress (the only nursing friendly one I have!) and yesterday realized I have no gift for my awesome mom (whaaaat??! How did that happen!?) and added fingerless mitts into the list for her. That may not seem like much but I have a 7 yo, 5.5 yo and new baby, three sets of family visits coming and everyone has been hit by colds. I would like to call TIME and push the big, wooly button that pauses the world except for knit time. For a week. Bliss!

  26. I am wishing absolutely all of you the best of luck, because chr***mas is coming, and fast! I know you all need it (or at least I do!)

  27. Stephanie,
    I always say I will not wait until the last minute to decorate, clean house, knit presents and finish a quilt. So much for that. I just got done hanging lights and snowflakes outside, I am not near done with the knitting and quilting and the house is a shambles.
    I know it will still be a great Christmas if the house is dirty and the presents are maybe a little late.
    Have a wonderful and Happy Christmas!

  28. I will be 56 in 9 days. I married my husband when I was 19. My oldest child is 33. This year will be the first Christmas in 36 years that I am not in a dazed, sleep deprived, weepy, over caffeinated, underfed, hysterical mad dash to the Christmas finish line. The tree, lights and decorations are up, the house is sufficiently clean, the menus are planned and the fixings purchased, the gifts are bought, made, wrapped and under the tree. I have only 4 pairs of slipper boots left to make (sewn, not knitted or crocheted), cookies to make, meat pies to make and Christmas dinner to cook. And I have FOUR WHOLE DAYS to finish those things in! This must be what it’s like to be a normal person ( as in not a lunatic handcrafter). Lol! Took me 36 years to get here but I finally made it! Well, for one year at least. And if nothing unforeseen occurs to throw a monkey wrench into my 4 days. And if the sewing machine doesn’t break. Or the…….damn. There went my Christmas high. Sigh.

    • Ah, yes. I vividly remember the Christmas we were making housecoats for the girls. The last sewing machine needle broke at 11:45 p.m. Christmas Eve.

      We survived and had a great holiday.

  29. You can do it! Oh my god, it sounds like these next few days are going to be nothing but knitting for you and me. I also still have to do some Christmas baking and shopping for dinner. Yep. It’s going to be super hectic until the 24th! Ah! But we can do it! We can do it! (If I keep saying it, it will come true, right?)

  30. One crochet project (i inherited) and one knitting project to go (Sock #2, which is past the heel as I work toward the toe!) I do have hopes of finishing in time.

    And though I seem to be in the minority here, I was very happy to take my husband’s last name as my own. I feel comforted by having our family unit (hubby and sons) all share the same last name. We feel like we’re on the same team.

  31. Heh. Surnames.. my husband took mine. Why? Shortened his signature significantly. ^.~

    Hang in there. One step.. stitch? .. at a time, it will be fine. Used to tell this to my mother every time she started muttering that we wouldn’t have something for Christmas. I tended to be right. ^.^

  32. Re state of Christmas readiness, my darling daughter elfed my tree for me over the weekend. All gifts and/or gift components are purchased and in my house. Still have a pile of wrapping to go (but I do enjoy that, even more so if I can manage to do it while the cat is napping), and 4 gifts to assemble. Three are jewellery so those really are just assembling the components. The 4th is an art project requested by the recipient but not specifically as a Christmas gift, so I don’t feel a ton of pressure to get it done by then. Bonus points to me if I do. Also lucky that due to a recently-acquired brother-in-law of Ukrainian heritage, we all get to claim Christmas isn’t over until Jan 7, and can even “hold back” one gift until then…

    Re surnames – my sisters and I all took our respective husbands’ surname, because our original surname was difficult to spell and pronounce, we didn’t feel any strong loyalty to it, and “the boys” all had common names that just seemed easier.

Leave a Reply to Christine Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.