(Ignore the seasonally inappropriate mug!)

The pattern is from the Yarn Harlots blog. It’s great pattern. There’s just the one row and the repeat is four stitches, so it was super easy to memorize. Great travel knitting.

The socks are knit plain, except for the cuff where I added this little heart motif. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have enough yarn to knit a second.

It looks like a decent ball of yarn, but it’s pretty thin. I think I’m going to have to frog the sock (again – I frogged it at least three times before I got the heart motif right). I’m trying to decide if I should frog it and knit it again with the heel, cuff and toe in a different color. Or frog it and make something else (what, I don’t know) out of the yarn and knit BabyLiu a pair of socks in a different colorway.

What say you?

First, I got some beautiful yarn from my Secret Santa:

204 yards of Patons Silk Bamboo in Sapphire. This is some of the softest yarn I’ve had the pleasure of petting. Even BabyLiu likes to rub it against her face. I want to make a scarf or shawlette with it because it would be pure heaven against my neck. I need to troll Ravelry for some ideas.

I also got this from my Mother in Law:

A gift set that has a skien of Lorna’s Laces new Solemate in Zombie BBQ (how awesome is that colorway name?) and a tub of Heel (from the makers of Soak) in Cucumber. The Heel smells heavenly and I’m in love with my yarn. Soulmate is merino, nylon, Outlast blend. Outlast is supposed to work with your body to prevent you from becoming too hot or too cold, which should make for some comfy socks. Lorna’s Laces makes some of my favorite sock yarn and I’m thrilled to have something to add to my not inconsiderable stash of Shepherd Sock.

Did you get anything awesome for Christmas?

The Tiny Heavenly Quartet! Two Angels and two Cherubs.

The patterns are from Mochimochi Land (shocked, aren’t you?). They are knit up in Panda Silk (again, a shock I’m sure). But! I also used Panda COTTON. (I’m totally branching out.) The Panda Cotton and is the pink I used for their skin. I was going to make some with brown skin as well, but I didn’t have any that I liked for skin tone. So my Angels and Cherubs are pale just like my baby.

You can see the Angels look considerably happier than the Cherubs. Probably because they have clothes on and you can’t see their butts. (The Cherubs totally have little butt cracks. Mr Liu found that hilarious.) Their weapon of choice? The Sword of Vengence. You probably know them as T-Pins. The question is, whose side will they come down on?

The tiny brawl:

Enter the Tiny Heavenly Quartet:

The Tiny Heavenly Quartet is on their own side. They think the whole fight is silly, so they’re going to beat some sense into the whole group of them.

The lesson here? Santa will use Christmas trees as weapons when other tinies don’t do what they tell them too. Snowmen and Reindeer don’t like Santa. Angels and Cherubs don’t take sides, they just beat up the whole group.

-Knit the mate to things with mates within 3 months of the first (seriously, there’s no excuse for having one baby sock when baby feet are so itty)

-Spin at least once a week

-Crochet one thing. A scarf, hat, dishcloth, doll. Something!

-Have training sessions with the kitties three times a week, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

Everyone here at Casa de Liu would like to wish you and yours a wonderful 2012. And let’s all hope the Mayans were just planning on purchasing a new calendar this December.

Casa de Liu would like to wish you a Happy Solstice, a Festive Festivus, a Cool Yule, A Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas and an Awesome Kwanzza.

But I can give you a sneak preview!

The Tiny Christmas Tree Forrest! This forrest has eyes and tattles on to Santa you when you’re naughty.

They are knit up in (you guessed it!) Panda Silk. I’m not as happy with these guys as I am with my previous tinies. I would have prefered the green to be a little lighter to let the ornaments and eyes show a bit better and the yellow to be a little darker so the star on top really shines. But, this is what was in the stash and I had to Tim Gunn it. And it worked.

Someone asked for something in the picture to help with scale, so here is a Tiny Christmas Tree and a nickel:

As you can see, the Tiny Tree is about twice the height of a nickel. He could be tinier, but then he’d be a sapling.

The Tiny Christmas Tree Forrest is squarely on Santa’s side. But, as Stanfurd shows us year after year, trees are only good as kindling and blunt objects. Santa uses this to his advantage:

There’s one more chapter in my holiday throwdown saga. Hopefully, it will be knit before Christmas.

Huh. That doesn’t give me a whole lot of time. Maybe I should stop typing.

The Tiny Reindeer Herd! No, none of them are named Ruldolph. Their names are Charles, Bernard and Mona. You can see Bernard got all the recessive genes. (He’s not too bright, either. Don’t mention it though. He’s very sensitive.)

These little guys are knit up using (you guessed it) Panda Silk and a pattern from Anna Hrachovec’s Teeny Tiny Mochi. Which is a book chock full of teeny adorableness that everyone should be knitting up. Thus far, these guys were the most time consuming tinies that I’ve made up. They’re little, but they have a lot of parts. Mostly antlers. That cats like to bat under the sofa before they’re assembled.

The Tiny Reindeer Herd has joined up with the Tiny Snowman Brigade to fight off the Tiny Santa Trio. They don’t like the way Santa keeps trying to make them pull their sleighs. I mean, they don’t even say please!

Don’t count the Tiny Santa Trio out, though! They still have a trick or two in their magic sacks!