Manic Christmas Knitting -- A Survivor's Tale

Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house I was selfishly knitting because the presents are done!  Seriously, I never thought the day would come.  But it did!  Sadly we are not going to see my parents on Christmas, but this comes as a blessing because I do not have to have all of those stockings complete.  And I much prefer enjoying a day off with nothing to do but prepare to go ice skating with my sister to frantic knitting in the corner unable to enjoy anything.

This is not to say I did not do any panic knitting.  Since the beginning of the month I have knit two pairs of mitts (one of them colorwork and eaten by the dog), a few stockings (before I realized I don't need them), and a billion ornaments.

I got this crazy idea last Tuesday that I wanted to knit ornaments for my team.  So I knit up these babies.  I stayed up until midnight for a few nights to get them finished.  Which may or may not have something to do with our new neighbor and his obnoxious beats.  Bad for my sleep but good for my knitting progress.  These guys are Snowball Buddies by Susan Claudino, a really cute pattern that got me to finally knit something with ears, safety eyes, and stuffed with polyfill.

And this (these really -- I knit two) is from Smitten, a holiday garland download from Knit Picks.  These knit up so fast, I knit one while watching Pulp Fiction the other night.  Next time I think I'll just knit these for everyone.  Or just buy presents.  But the look of excitement on people's faces makes it really hard not to do this to myself every time.

So happy Christmas, wherever you are in your knitting.  Hopefully you too are on to selfish knitting.  Me?  I just got my copy of Doomsday Knits, so I have a lot to do!

Yarn Emergency

Today I was reminded just how much of a city girl I have become.  When I was growing up it was not that unusual for us to drive an hour or more to get to a certain store or source of entertainment.  We had a movie theater in our county, but if you were really excited about the film than you would drive about an hour to get to the "good" theater.  And if you needed braces and did not get on well with the one orthodontist in our area then you would drive thirty to forty minutes away, depending on how many seasonal tourists you got stuck behind.  So it was rather strange when I realized just how put-out I felt that I had to drive out quite a way out of town to remedy my yarn emergency.

But wait.  Let me back up.  I haven't even told you about said yarn emergency.  You see this?

This is a rather substantial ball of yarn connected to a colorwork project that I am knitting as a Christmas gift.  Or at least it was until my loving, darling Helo decided to use it as a way to make a point.  It seems I was not paying enough attention to him the other morning when getting ready for work so he decided to shred it.  How sweet, right?

Despite being fortunate enough to live near a variety of yarn shops, when I got on Ravelry to find a replacement the closest shop that indicated it carries Cascade Superwash Sport is an hour out of town.  Luckily the woman I spoke with when I called them in a panic was kind enough to put a skein aside for me with the promise that I would pick it up today.  Which is how I found myself on the highway in a downpour driving to Hillsborough.

Hillsborough Yarn Shop gained some notice lately when they played host to the Yarn Harlot last week (I wasn't able to go because it was the same night as our big work fundraiser.   Sometimes working for a non-profit can have it's downsides).  The woman who greeted me was really sweet and weirdly efficient.  She looked me square in the eye when I told her who I was and why I was there and told me "don't panic."  The yarn was sitting just inside what I assume is their quick-access storage room and she had it bagged before I even thought to locate my wallet.  I was a little surprised that she did not ask if I was interested in anything else before completing my purchase, but in hindsight I realize that she truly understood the depth of my concern.  I need to have these mitts completed within the week and she totally understood that.  I can only imagine that she too has once found herself racing to beat Father Christmas as she cranked out holiday gifts (really, why do we this to ourselves). 

I was in and out in under ten minutes and drove the hour back home fueled by whatever concoction McDonalds is calling a peppermint mocha.  Trust me, it is not the same.   Hopefully I can make it back sometime and get a recommendation for a local coffee shop to atone for that mistake.  And probably buy more yarn.  Because really, I owe them.

Fearful Knitting

Not to start a riot or freak you out at all, but there are currently only 23 days until Christmas.  Every year I declare I will not, absolutely not, do any Christmas knitting.  No matter how appreciative the family might be.  I claim that I don't want them to have any expectations, but really I just don't want to face such a hard and scary deadline.  I'll knit for birthdays, for anniversaries, for just because.  But knitting for Christmas?  I just don't do it.  Or so I say.  But it never fails that as Christmas approaches I suddenly feel like I should be knitting.  Like it says something about me as a knitter if I don't knit for anyone.  And so as I build my gift list I slip in little items.  Oh, it's just a hat, it's just a shawl, I can totally whip that up in time.  

Which is why today I ordered yarn from The Loopy Ewe for a pair of mitts (hey, they are having a Cyber Monday sale and it's not like I went shopping for myself) and why I am stalking the mail carrier waiting for Knit Picks to send me the yarn for the last of the family stockings.  Why I am trying to decide if certain stash combinations are masculine enough and why I am knitting away furiously on a pair of mittens, convinced I can finish them today even though it looks as if I don't have enough yarn.

And of course, this is why I am procrastinating like you would not believe.  I spent two hours this morning working on our attic, unpacking and organizing with the excuse that this will make getting the Christmas decorations out easier, when really I'm just trying to shake the specter of a shawl I am dying to make for myself.

But hey -- all of my books are out of boxes now.  Maybe I should go read something . . .

FO: Eva's Buttony Cowl

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas weekend.  I got to go home with Chris to visit my family.  It's always fun when you stick all six of us under one roof.  We didn't get snowed in this year, but now that Chris and I have been engaged for a year the atmosphere was much more relaxed than last year's unspoken pending proposal.

This was the first year that I did not give everyone hand knit gifts.  Every time I mentioned that I was considering it someone on twitter would remind me that I had vowed never again after all of the Christmas knitting I did last year.  I had that last minute family add-on that just did me in (though it was for my grandfather and was probably the last time he truly knew who I was so it was totally worth it).  In any case, despite my solemn promise to not knit for anyone for Christmas (I went so far as to make a formal no-knitting declaration to the family), I still managed to fit in some last minute Christmas knitting.

I've mentioned before that my family is very knit-worthy, and while I did not knit for anyone else, I felt inspired to knit for my sister.  I love knitting for my brother because he wears my hats all the time and I love knitting for my sister because she sticks her feet in people's faces to make them feel the softness of the socks.  I've had two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in my stash for at least two years.  They were a part of an ill-advised attempt at leg warmers (I've learned that with a few notable exceptions I am quite fine to buy rather than knit my leg warmers) that has long been abandoned.  The buttons had also been long time members of the stash, actually I think they were founding items of my very small button box, and are part of the set I used when I repurposed my Wicked Vest for her as well.

Lucky me, my sister's color of the season is this shade of blue.  Her ability to look completely put together is perfectly suited to the funky look of this version of the Traveling Woman Cowl.  I knit the small, fingering weight, flat version and just shortened the stockinette section and the number of lace repeats.  I wish I had made the button holes smaller, but it still came out nicely and I'm quite pleased with my last minute Christmas knitting for the year.

FO: Christmas Knitting

I know that last year I swore off knitting Christmas presents after I cranked out hats for everyone in my family, but I seem to have forgotten that around the end of October. This year my Christmas knitting required two shawls, three pairs of fingerless mitts, a set of wristers, a hat, and two secret projects that have yet to be completed (oops!)

I made this shawl for my mom (Rav links with more photos). By now I think everyone recognizes Damson. I knit this out of Cascade Heritage Sock and yes, I ran out of yarn. But now I'm glad I had to buy another skein because I have quite a bit left over. I love the way the colors worked up so much I seriously almost kept this for myself.

Chris' mom (my . . . future mother in law? . . . weird) is a huge fan of all things Pittsburgh. I picked up a skein of specially dyed Steelers colored yarn to do the edging of a shawl. I ended up using the Reading Shawl because it has the nice neck shaping to help prevent the shawl from falling off this energetic petite woman.

I knit my brother the Cairn hat for his birthday back in October, so for Christmas I knit for him a matching pair of mitts. For some reason I got it in to my head to make the same mitts in other colors for my dad and Chris. All needing to be knit within a week and a half. Obviously, I lost my mind because as I was working on the second set I started seeing this:

The guys all appear to be pleased, so my craziness appears to have been merited (though they sadly did not get the reference).

My sister presented a bit more of a complex problem. She has already requested a few items that are super patterned, making them difficult to work on during school. But these wristers, knit up in Malabrigo Twist, are the perfect mix of girly and impracticality. My favorite part is the giant bow.

Finally, a few days before Christmas, I decided to knit a hat for my grandfather who would be making an unexpected appearance at the traditional unwrapping.

Jared Flood's Turn a Square. It is super addictive. Gracie even decided to get in on the modeling.

Christmas Mouse

I've never been able to sleep well on Christmas Eve.  Even as a kid I would doze off and then wake up in the middle of the night to sneak downstairs to look at the tree like a quiet Christmas mouse.  The house is always so peaceful tonight.  Everyone is asleep in their rooms all cozy and tucked away.  It really has to be my favorite night of the year.

Christmas Eve is not a big to-do at our house.  We do lots of wrapping and hanging out (this year one wrapping job that my sister and I took on started with a box and ended with me holding the paper with my mouth so we could secure it properly).  Oh and knitting.  I did lots of knitting this year.  But I finished my grandfather's last minute hat with time to spare.  I was pretty psyched and everyone else was very relieved that the Christmas knitting craziness has passed for the year.

One tradition we never skip is driving around town after dinner to look at Christmas lights.  It's fun to see neighborhood dynamics evolve over the years.  We sing raucously to Christmas music and assign extra points to houses that employ colored lights.  White lights might look more classy but the colored lights are way more fun.  Eventually my dad will spot Santa in the sky, the signal to go  home and put all the kids to bed.

Now everyone is tucked away, waiting for Santa to come fill the stockings.  Normally we'd be up early anxious to have each other open the presents that we bought, but my grandfather is coming this year so we'll have to wait until close to ten.  I suppose the teenagers won't mind the extra hours of sleep.  And we might get some snow! We're just a tad excited.

Wherever you are and however you celebrate, I hope you've retired your knitting, tucked your children in to bed, and settled down for a content and peaceful night.  Merry Christmas!

Santa's Going Home!

You know what the hardest part of knitting is?  Wrapping.  But I'm done now!

All wrapped and ready to take home tomorrow.  I feel like Santa. Ho ho ho!

Now I just need to clean, and pack, and put together knitting for the trip and cast on for one last gift to knit up on the drive.  All in the next two hours before we do Christmas dinner with Chris' parents.

Oh yes.  I'm not crazy at all.

The Importance of G&H

Typing has been difficult as of late.  Yesterday after coming back from a run I was setting up to continue working on my thesis research (read: catch up on Supernatural and knit) when I got tangled in the cord and knocked the computer on to the ground.  A few minutes later the "g" "h" and backspace keys were no longer working.  Do you realize how many words we use in daily language that include those two letters?  A LOT!  That's how many.  So today I took it to Best Buy to the oh so wonderful geek squad . . . who told me the computer would have to be mailed away and would not be returned for at least three weeks.  A few moments of shock later I had packed up my computer and walked out.

Fortunately Chris came in to town today and brought his old desktop keyboard.  So several shuffled stacks of paper and my desk now looks like this:

It lights up!  I'm determined that nothing is going to keep me in a panicked mess for long, no matter how many times I sob on the phone to my mother.  There is way too much to accomplish by May.

Amid all of this I have continued to push through my Christmas knitting.  I try to take breaks when my fingers start to hurt, but I think I can finish before we leave for my parents' house on Thursday.  But I have once again vowed to never, EVER make Christmas presents again.

It's Randomly Sunday Again

1.  It's November.  Any university student will tell you that it is one of the most stressful months of the entire year.  I think this is the most stressful November on record.

2.  Because of the fact that it's crazy stress-inducing November I've been especially bad about posting, replying to comments, and emailing people.  If I owe you some form of contact, don't worry, I haven't forgotten.

3.  Something I tend to do when I am very stressed out is shift my mental focus to obsess over something non-scholastic when I'm not working on school.  When I was in high school it was Star Wars, and lately it's been Doctor Who.  I used a birthday gift to Amazon to pre-order series 5.  It finally arrived last week.

4.  I love Matt Smith

5.  I finally cast on the other sock for my mom.  Should be done sometime next summer.

I took this photo of the first sock a few weeks ago.  It is modeled on the foot of my friends' two year old daughter.

6.  I've also been working on Christmas presents, because of course I am insane enough to decide to knit presents again this year.  And, wouldn't you know it, I'm almost out of yarn on one. Not quite sure what I'm going to do.

7.  I love Matt Smith.

8.  Chris visited this weekend.  We went shopping yesterday (or rather, I went shopping and he tagged along) and found this:

It's a set of Star Wars baking supplies!  So of course I bought the apron

And maybe one set of cookie cutters?

9.  There is no Sherlock on tonight.  Makes me very sad.  If you have yet to check it out and you live in the US, go to pbs.com and check out the Masterpiece Mystery episodes where they aired the three episodes that make up series 1.

10.  Did I mention I love Matt Smith?