Merry Christmas!

Mom is currently about to have a heart attack while watching the Packers game.

I’m writing this on my phone because my kindle doesn’t want to let me write anything other than a header.

I’m also writing this from my brother’s couch in Seattle where I will be until Tuesday.

My brother’s German shepherd, Loki is eating treats next to me and I have the last remnants of my travel knitting next to me.

I packed 6 items: two hats for soldiers to do the crown, one kindle cozy for the last cousin, yarn for another Christmas present and a red scarf for me.

The red scarf was knit the whole flight and on Friday and finished off the yarn Friday afternoon during an exhausting day of football games.

I finished the first kindle cozy yesterday making the blue and cream look like a tube sock.

I knit the crowns of four hats.

I’m now working on a nook cozy for my bestie.

We went yarn shopping yesterday and I got lots of expensive yarns that I need to find a use for before our flight home.

I miss my kittens terribly. I’ve only been gone for a couple days but I miss their snuggles and purrs and even George’s incessant meows. Only a couple more days and I’ll be home to give them lots of snuggles!

Until then I’ll be on the couch knitting and eating chocolate cheesecake.

Merry Christmas to you all! Thank you for continuing to return to the blog and listen to my rants. I’ll be back in a couple days!

Yes and No

Yes: I got knitting done last night.

No: It was not the correct amount of knitting.

Yes: I got to the thumb of a mitten last night.

No: I didn’t finish one mitten and get to the second mitten.

Yes: I’m making the second and third pairs different than the first.

No: I haven’t decided how yet.

Yes: My gauge is getting tighter.

No: My stress level isn’t getting lighter.

Yes: I’m intending on flipping out tonight while knitting frantically on the second half of the first mitten, hopefully getting to the thumb or further on the second mitten and knitting the second topper from the first set.

No: I don’t have a lot of hope of getting this done before I fall asleep tonight.

Yes: I will be knitting mittens on my way to the party tomorrow.

No: I will not finish them by the time we get to the party.

Yes: These mittens will be in the bag with the needles in them.

No: I’m not nervous about how they’ll be received.

Yes: I just lied.

And I’m Over It

First off: Thank you for still being a subscriber to the blog after my wonderful meltdown yesterday.

I went home, knit the topper to one mitten after some trial and a lot of error and I’m finally happy with what I have to show for this party. Too bad I only have 3.5 days to finish them.

I balled up the second mittens’ yarn so it’s ready to be knit up but I need to finish the other topper for the first pair before I can have the needles free to start the second pair.

This is getting confusing. So I’m going to try to unconfuse it:

Fingerless Mittens A are 2/3 done: They need one more topper and the ends to be woven in.

Fingerless Mittens B have the yarn balled. Tonight I will start on the cuff of one, hopefully make it through the thumb gusset and possibly finish one.

Fingerless Mittens C are still in skein form. More than likely, these will be in the bag as such with a pair of needles so I can start them at the party.

 

So once all that is done, I’m going to go buy some hats for the rest of the soldiers. They’re inexpensive at the stores if I just get the regular knit hats and I simply don’t have the time to knit another 20 hats in the next week and a half. I can probably finish off another three or four, but 20? No.

I then need to start on presents for my best friends. M1 is going to get a felted lunch bag because I think it’ll be adorable and she can take it to work with her since she always takes lunch to work with her.

M2 will be getting a scarf. I’m not sure what yarn or what pattern I’ll use. All I know is it will be out of handspun even though I don’t think I have any blue or green. I think she’ll have to get something complimentary to the sea-blue/green Alpaca hat she currently has.

And that’s all I have!

Ennui and Melancholy

NOTE: Expletives and un-ladylike language ahead. Tell the children to visit another blog tonight.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I’m kind of a cynic/realist. This is what happens when my cynicism reaches its full potential and I learn a lot about myself in a short period of time. I attempted funny, I giggled while reading. Hopefully you will to.

Usually I’d be gung-ho for Christmas and for knitting for my friends and family for the holiday get-togethers.

Not this year.

I’ve come to realize that I find a sick pleasure from spreading myself too thin and then bitching about it when things don’t go to plan because I essentially plan them to go to shit  wait until the last minute to knit things procrastinate. On the other hand, I also get a pleasure from seeing other people light up from the things I do for them. I feel like I’m justified from spending so much time on something when I see them light up and try on their knits and it’s like a tiny little hug from me whenever they put this knitted item on.

I have approximately 5 days to knit four more fingerless mitts and six toppers for them. These three pairs of convertible mittens will have to be done as soon as possible when it’s seemingly impossible to do so. One pair will be done by the time we leave for the party, another will probably have the needles in the thumbs because I finished them in the car ride to the party and a third will have the needles in the body of the mitten itself and will have to be deferred until after I get back from the holidays. All ends have to be woven in and they should be blocked but I’m choosing to refrain from doing so because I don’t have that kind of time.

Didn’t I start talking about Christmas knitting in July? Why is it December 13 and I’m furiously knitting away on presents I should have started last year? This is the fate of knitters everywhere, I’m sure.

Yes, I’m in one of those moods today. I’m choosing to blame the full moon and my unfortunate string of bad luck with dating as of late.

So last night, after getting really crappy news about this guy I really liked, I cast on a red scarf for myself on size 8 needles. This simple garterstitch scarf made me think of how much I take for granted with knitting; how I knit for others in order to find some sort of gratitude from them when I know most of them don’t fawn over the knitted garment with the same frantic freak-out devotion I used to knit it. I haven’t knit for myself since I finished the Bagheera Cowl and started the insane hats for Soldiers (Which were received in a week (!) and I got a thank you from an Airman. An AIRMAN. Dammit. I wrote “Soldier” in EVERY. SINGLE. LETTER. It’s right now when you can hear the thud from my head slamming against my desk.) so the fact that I’m finally knitting for myself makes me feel a little better about my abilities.

So now I knit these mittens knowing I’ll be hearing “I thought you were making a scarf instead” or “I thought you had the color that matches this item you made me last year!” to which I will tear the mittens from the recipients hands and say “I’m disowning you” “If you don’t like them, just say so and I’ll give them to someone who will appreciate them I will totally take them off your hands to keep my own warm!”

And then I’ll pretend I’m not deeply hurt even though I totally saw it coming.

It’s at this close proximity to Christmas and said party, that I wonder why I do this to  myself every year. Why do I spend hours and hours knitting things I know won’t be appreciated. Why do I stress myself to the point of lying in the fetal position chewing on my hair muttering to myself, or yelling at people “DON’T BOTHER ME WITH QUESTIONS OF GIFT CARDS, I HAVE MITTENS TO KNIT!!!” and spending my nights wondering why I ever wanted to knit in the first place? And then I come to the blog, bitch about it for a while, and I feel better for the moment.

Tonight I will knit. Because I have a deadline. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss it.

This weekend

Started at the post office:

Friday night I spent signing many more cards, packing the hats for Soldiers and their cards in individual sealed baggies before packing them into a box taped shut with silver Duck Tape. The box was a thing of beauty. 34 hats were neatly packaged and ready to go to Afghanistan to keep the heads of soldiers warm. Continuing the effort, I put out a new blast the other day on the blog and more knitters came to my rescue! I should have four more hats coming in the mail in the next few days as well as any others my fellow knitters should come up with.

I got to the post office bright and early because Saturday is a crazy house in my local post office. I spent five minutes circling the room before finding the customs form, couldn’t remember how to properly fill it out because a.) It’s been about 9 months since I last had to fill out a customs form for a package going to Afghanistan and b.) the form is totally defunct and you can’t properly fill it out. I forgot to write the dude’s address ON the box, got insurance and delivery confirmation on the box because my Soldier contact hasn’t been on the AnySoldier site in over 50 days so I wanted to make sure it would get to him and those two options seemed best at the time and finally got the little brown box past the lovely ladies at the post office.

I did knit this weekend. Amazingly enough.

I know, I have hats and scarves and other things to knit but instead…

My feet were cold.

I cast on these socks on Saturday because I didn’t want to knit another hat because I would go insane if I had to knit another godforsaken hat for a lovely Soldier. I was just being driven insane by hats. I couldn’t take it anymore. Those little 16 inch needles were plotting against me due to their overworked nature. I packed them nicely away and hoped they would forgive me in a couple days.

So I grabbed my never-used-before size 4 Addis and cast on a sock out of some superwash Merino handspun. This stuff feels so fantastic in my hands and I couldn’t wait to see how they would feel on my feet.

I ballparked it and made the toe generous so it would fit nicely without stretching too far which seems to be my big problem with socks; I hate the purl bumps when I can feel them stretching under the big feet I own. I figured slipper-sock-esque socks would be best in this instance and I was right.

It took me an inordinantly long time to turn the heel on Saturday night: 1.5 hours or two episodes of Mad Men. I chalked it up to being inexperienced in turning heels and continued my process. It may have also been because I was texting a very cute boy often through the night.

It should also be noted that it was the best-turned heel of my entire knitting career.

I went to bed without a finished sock but promptly finished it and started the second. My tootsies were freezing at this point so I cuddled under a plush with a kitty on my lap and plowed through the second sock while watching the Packers win their 12th game. I continued knitting through all of our Sunday television and I cast off during PanAm last night. I wove in ends and slipped them on my cold little sausage toes and wiggled them around inside their wooly blankets.

I’m going to see about adding puffy paint to the soles because I tend to slip around a bit in hand-knit socks. I should just try learning how to walk in them instead.

Once I was done with the socks I still had the bug to keep knitting but I didn’t want to knit a hat yet. They’re still eluding me.

So I grabbed two pairs of size 2 needles and cast on a kindle cozy out of some Stitches Yarn that looks freakishly Doctor Who.

Note the "Allons-y" someone wrote on a Post-It and placed on the top of my TARDIS USB. It seemed fitting

I adore this colorway and the fact that it’s pooling in the middle and on one side is so charming to me. It’s just a simple stockinette and I have no idea if it’s the right size but I imagine it’ll fit comfortably in there and will allow me to keep my Kindle happy.

This, of course, is before I receive my Kindle Fire from Mom. She’s giving it to me as a Christmas present. How do I know? I was standing next to her as she bought it. I want to be prepared!

I’m going to knit night with the hopes that the hat bug will strike again. If it doesn’t, I guess I’ll have a kindle cozy to speak for my night.

Today is December 1

That means 19 days until I have to have four presents done for my family.

The cousins already know they’re getting scarves to match their hats from last year. The colors don’t totally match for two of them but I’m thinking it’ll be OK so long as it’s in the general ballpark.

I’m considering making something for my Aunt but I don’t have any more of the orange from which I made her mittens last year and I don’t know if she would rather have a hat or scarf.

I’m also in quite the conundrum because I have approximately 30 hats left to knit and/or collect in the next two weeks. Luckily a few ladies in the “Stand by your Man in Uniform” group on Rav (from when I was with the Marine) have volunteered to knit a couple hats so that’s extremely nice and generous and a bunch of other synonyms for sweet/kind/cool/awesome of them.

I’m thinking this endeavor may have been a bit too much for me to handle. I just hope I can finish out the project and start planning for next year as I’ll want to do the same thing, but start knitting in the spring and keep collecting throughout the year. I’m also considering adding another page on the site header for progress and/or knitter info.

But anyway– back to the 19 days left. We’re meeting on a Sunday. I’m driving myself down there so that means no knitting in the car which means I’ll probably be up until about 3 in the morning every day from now until then splitting my time between hats and scarves praying that I can get done in a decent amount of time, muttering to myself, complaining at how tall my cousins are and vowing that next year I won’t knit for a single soul except for myself.

Maybe I need to use bigger needles with the yarn held double. It’s worked before!

In a further attempt to not jinx it, I will only tell you that the date went well and I enjoyed myself immensely.

On another knitterly note: The Yarn Harlot has decided to do a 25 Days of Knitting Gifts for non-knitters who love knitters. This is a very good resource for any of you who have family that have no idea what to get for you as a knitter. This also is a good resource for any of my friends or family who will be looking for presents for me. You can check out her blog through the month of December for regular updates.

Until next time, happy knitting and may the fiber be with you!