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Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 7 part 1 – 23:44

Finally got a photo of Henry in the vest I made him for Christmas. He seems to like it a lot, wears it all the time and even to bed in our chilly house.

Here’s what it looked like blocking and before the buttons were on:

So hard to photograph reds — it’s a lovely dark red, not orange or pink at all. The argyle panel continues over the shoulder and down the back.

Yarn: KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, Cranberry, 6 skeins. Needles size 4 (3 for ribbing). Quick pattern notes:

Starting with 75 stitches CO at neck (provisional)
divide in 3rds
4 sets of shortrows each side, every 5 st
argyle pattern on one side, 4 plain, 17 for pattern, 4 plain (obviously, add on st to left side of pattern to balance)
46 rows (at armhole edge) down back, then pick up fronts.
same short rows.
inc at neck edge until 29+29 then add 5 each side (68 total, remaining 7 will be button bands later)
(Add some stitches at underarm when joining in round, forgot to note this info)
vest is a total of 120 rows (near armhole, more down center back).
24 rows of k2p2 ribbing on size 3 needles
pick up 2 out of 3 stitches for front bands and collar
(inc 2 stitches at front collar corners every other round)
pick up 3 out of 4 stitches for armhole ribbing
8 rows ribbing for bands

More pics on my flickr or the project page at ravelry.

On Wednesday morning (Dec 30) Henry and I (and, apparently, everyone else in San Diego) went to the zoo! We had free bus tour passes that expired at the end of 2009, so we braved the long lines and took the tour. It really didn’t take that long to get onto the bus, and the tour was great — really long, and, since it was chilly, there were lots of animals out playing and doing their thing. Here we are waiting in line:

Here’s my handsome boy reading while waiting for the bus to start:

And then after the bus tour was over, we walked over to the Orangutans and Siamangs and watched them for a long time. Clyde, the 300-pound male, was resting under a burlap poncho, but two of the females were playing right by the glass!

Had a great New Year’s Eve yesterday with Henry and Dan. I went grocery shopping in the morning, and then I spent a long time cooking a big lovely Shepherd’s Pie for lunch/dinner, with tomato sauce from scratch and all, while Henry and Dan worked for hours on another of Henry’s adafruit.com kits. Dan says that Henry’s getting to be really skilled at soldering! Then we all lay around in the living room and watched the Victorian Farm Christmas Specials, which were marvelous, and even more interesting, I thought, than the main series, because they went into way more depth and detail.

And then I put on the 1951 Alastsair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, which was great! And then Henry and I goofed around on npr.org until midnight and then we all three sent Chloe simultaneous Happy New Year text messages because we were feeling silly, ha! And then we all ran out into the back yard and looked at the beautiful full moon and listened to the drunken neighbors setting off illegal fireworks, and then we went to bed.

I finished all the knitting on my Arden Bag kit and will felt it today.

I have still not blogged about Christmas, darn it. We had a wonderful time with Chloe and Bob and Kirsten and Marcos in the week before Christmas — ate, talked, played hours of Beatles Rock Band, and saw Avatar; and then we had a nice quiet Actual Christmas with just the three of us. Henry gave me two of my long-wished-for Betsy-Tacy reprints and Dan gave me a beautiful new digital camera, which is super-cool and suits me perfectly. And Dan liked his Christmas socks and nixie clock kit, and Henry liked his books and knitted vest and electronics kits. Here’s Henry doing some soldering:

And peeling apples for the pie he made to take to his Temecula Grandparents’ house

We had a very Merry Christmas and hope you did too!

Hooray for the Swiss Family!

The Swiss Family Robinson, Chapter 6 part 2 – 20:44