Knitting Progress

I, like many other knitters and crafters and insane people, sometime in the early autumn thought to myself, “I know how to achieve a fun, thoughtful and relatively inexpensive present experience. I will knit everyone I know something. It will be fun! It will be thoughtful! It was be fancy and I will convince everyone that I have not gone mad but am instead, knitter extraordinaire. Falalalala!”

Now it’s coming up on ten days ’til Christmas. Ask me how it’s going. Go on.

Well, it’s actually fine because I’m pretty good at revising plans to suit reality. And I recognize that I would have managed to get a lot more knitted for other people if I didn’t keep on doing things like this:

Two days ago, this was a lost, naked hot water bottle. Now it has a little sweater. A little Malabrigo sweater. Now it has lots more friends and is being invited to parties. It is not, however, a present. It is MINE ALL MINE!

This, however, will be a present if I can ever finish the damned thing. This was my first foray into lace. It does not bode well for my continued shawl production that I finally cried “To hell with it” ten rows short of the end and started to bind off (I-cord) and then lost interest halfway through the bind off.

These are the socks I started in a toe-up sock class my mother gave me as a birthday present. Rather groovesome, no? The yarn is fine, although it is not what I would have chosen from a shelf (it came with the class) so I’m thinking they might be a present too. (Go on, tell me I’m Machiavellian for giving them away. I’m knitting socks for people I love, buster.)

These were going to be for me (the yarn is Artyarns Supermerino) but I do (all right, I admit it) feel a little guilty for wanting to keep the good stuff and give the stripy ones away so these are probably a present too. They’re really lovely. I like them. And they’re being knit on 2s which is really far more satisfying for the deadline crazed knitter than knitting on 1s.

This gorgeousness (Lorna’s Laces in Child’s Play) is going to become socks, as soon as I can find more size 1s. Or maybe scrounge a long circular from somewhere. They will be magnificent. I hope they’re on time. I may be hoping in vain. Do you see that tea there? It’s Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer. I live on this stuff. I wonder why.

This hat (Shedir from Knitty) is taking up my long circulars and is very nice and will be for my mother (bravely flaunting her bizarre no present rule which she has now confessed she herself is going to break as long as we tell her what we want. Aaaack! Complete mother-induced nervous breakdown enroute).

A finished present: a hat for my beautiful couz. It’s not a surprise so I can post it here. What will surprise her is how large and hideous looking it is. This is because it is not yet felted. I promise that a little agitation (for the hat) and a little wine (for us) and you will have a fabu topper. Really.

And while we’re at it, here’s Helena’s hat. It has a nice button, but it gets tied because the straps are too long. It’s nice, and knit from Aurora 8, which I lurve. Not just love. This wool is so groovy that it gets that sort of sliding funky voice. It’s luuuuuurrrve.

Things not even cast on include a hat for Ed to replace the scratchy one; matching wristbands for me and my sisters; semi-fingerless gloves for my sister’s husband; several stuffed animals (a mini Bobbi bear and several Jess Hutch creations); the tiny pocket creatures from the latest Knitty; autumn leaves socks for my mother; another felted hat for my aunt.

I think I should stop thinking so I don’t remember what I forgot to include. This list already has me knitting non-stop for the next two months. I think I may have gone overboard. Time to revise the revised plan to suit this reality, if I can find reality with a long pole.

Similar Posts:

• Progress (of sorts)
• The story of the knitted tank that should never have been and that now isn’t
• Hold on there a minute, crazy knitter