Here I am sitting at Bintliff's which is, according to my son Blake and me, the very best breakfast place in Portland.  My arms are adorned with Stulpin, which are European knitting garb intended for either your forearms or your legs.  We had two guests from Germany staying over in our Airbnb room and I was knitting knee socks as we chatted over the breakfast scones in the studio.  One of the ladies wondered if I could make the socks without feet.  It took us a while to figure each other out, what with her not so good English and my much, much worse German, but we managed.  The results are these Stulpin, which are now with her in Munich keeping her forearms, or her legs, warm through the cold European winter.

This is a closer view of them showing the little mock cables that I put on my particular version.  I will post a pattern on Ravelry and on my Etsy site if you want to make them exactly like mine but if you are a sock knitter almost any rib like pattern that you would use on socks will work nicely.  Color work might not be stretchy enough for arms and legs, particularly if you have working class calves like mine.

This is a picture of my beautiful... um...relative.  Nico is the second son of my nephew....what do you call that kind of relative?  In any case he is beautiful and he is winsomely modeling the sweater I made for him before he was born.  This is a version of the Hooded Sweater for Everybody made with hand dyed sock yarn so it is warm and entirely washable.  Based on his parents I assumed a dark haired, dark eyed baby and as you can see I assumed correctly, which doesn't always happen for me.  There was, of course, no way of anticipating the awesome adorableness of Nico himself.  He is a darling baby boy and is, in this picture, approximately 6 months old.  If you would like to make a version of this jacket for your own charming relatives it is listed on the pattern page here and on Ravelry here.  If you do decide to work one up please send me photographs.  You really just can't have too many of these cute baby pictures.

I added some tweaks to improve my I-Pad Cozy.  I use my I-Pad to read while I am knitting.  In the past I've had to search old fat books with loose bindings that would lay flat but with the I-Pad that is all old problems from the distant past.  I wanted to make the I-Pad cozy reading friendly and figure out a way to use it to prop things at the perfect reading angle.  This is the result.  I added these little corners and also added a flap to close the top of the envelope and to hold the roll that creates the prop for the optimum reading angle.  The pattern for the cozy is available on Ravelry and you can click through by going to the pattern page here.

This is what it looks like without the I-Pad, but with the sleeve rolled and the closing flap buttoned down to secure the roll.  This pattern uses Peacefleece worsted yarn and a size 6 needle.  I also used Peacefleece buttons to secure the flap.  The colors of this yarn are rich, heathery and beautiful and the wool makes the texture of the cozy cushiony and delightful to touch.  If you button the flap the other way it closes the top of the case and makes everything nice and secure.  It completely enhances my knitting and reading experience, and just when I thought it couldn't possibly be any better.