I'm so behind

in blogging. But what's new?

Had a splendiferous Christmas. All the holiday knitting was done and wrapped BEFORE Christmas Eve Eve! But no pics. Crappy broken camera. But the looks on their faces is seared in my memory. Happy day. Who got what? Let a list suffice:

Dear Sister, Holly, got the Lotus Blossom Tank (pics are floating around here somewhere, when I finished it earlier this summer)

Mom got the second pair of socks, first pair of jaywalkers, and first pair using Schaeffer Yarns. No pics. Not a fan of jaywalkers (but a huge fan of Grumerpina)

which reminds me . . .

Granddad got the sharkif from Grumperina's site, knit in the lovely burnt orange merino wool that made up so many of the first posts on the blog. It only went through five different garments and rips before becoming that scarf, but Granddad seemed to love it.

DH got a funky wool hat. He won my heart today when he said, "I love that hat. Did I tell you I saw one almost exactly like it in Banana Republic?" The design came from my head. Really. Seriously. No friggin hyperbole here. It really did. I'm glowing.

MawMaw got a beautiful scarf made from cashermino in lavendar (DD's choice). It was a short scarf using a lacy design so as to prevent MawMaw from overheating. She loves it and had it prominently displayed on her lounge chair when I showed up unannounced. More glowing to rival Rudolph.

I've had some more FOs but not Christmas gifts: a fun wool hat for DD with a HUMONGOUS pompom on top (my first, also made up from my head).

I've CO for some socks for DH, but using the 2 mm Addis, 16" circs (2) is killing my hands. The Addis are stunning as always, but 2 mm? And I have 1 mm in the stash that I haven't used. I can barely spot them when they're laying on the table in plain view they're so small, much less knit with them.

I got two books: Nancy Bush's knitting vintage socks book (I'm too lazy to get up and get the actual title - it's the one in which she translates patterns from We.... the magazine from the turn of the century. That one. You know.) So far I like it, though she turned a lot of the children's socks into adult socks, and I like them as children's socks. Oh well. I'll knit them for me (You know, I've yet to knit a pair of socks for me.)

The second book is One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant (it's sitting right under my nose, so I can stay lazy but still get the title right). It's good, but it's put me in a funk.

A funk. I hate knitting funks.

Yarn, yarn, and more yarn. Needles in multiple sizes, multiple needles in the same size. Books galore. You'd think a girl would be happy. But am I happy? Do I have a good project on the needles? WEllll.....

I got the one skein book to help empty my stash of, well, one skeins. Leftovers from other projects. I usually buy one extra skein to help me fix all the fuck-ups, but it does leave a lot of yarn leftover. And I can't bring myself to throw it away.

But now I can't seem to match the yarn I have with a pattern I want to knit and that calls for the yarn that I have. Those are three things that are hard to match:

1. My interest in a pattern
2. The yarn I have on hand
3. The pattern that will match the yarn I have

Somehow, in most cases I have two out of three but not all three. And two out of three a project doesn't make. Take the baby sweater I started to knit: with the yarn I had on hand, I swear it looked to fit a refrigerator, so I stopped. I kept flipping through the book, mentally conjuring the yarn in my stash, and just plopping the book down in frustration.

I'm not sure I'm a sock knitter, either. I love socks. I look at them adoringly. Longingly. But I'm not sure I have the mental and physical fortitude to knit them. We shall see if I make it through DH's socks. I've promised him some for months, so I must, I must, I must increase my b... Well, yes, I do need to increase that. But I must finish those socks for DH.

Well, at this point I'm spending more time correcting the mistakes in this blog than I am typing. But I couldn't let the year pass - my first year blogging - without one last post.

Cheers for a New Year! Happy Knitting.