so...

Hey! I just flipped through my camera and I have literally no photos of knitting that I can show you right now. And that is kind of a bummer.

I do have this:



Which is a very lovely pile of swag that I got from the International Traveling Hoar Tin (tm?), which is essentially a nice way to trade yarn we don't want but that is still nice and worthy yarn. I've been "needing" 3 skeins of variegated Koigu for a pair of Diamond Patch Socks, a pattern that my dear Mom got me a couple years ago for Christmas, and which I promptly looked through, concluded were some Master-Level Uber-Knitter socks, and then hid from myself. Someday I will make those socks, and that day just got closer because here is a nice pile of three skeins of Koigu.

There's also some sportweight sock yarn, a set of five buttons that actually match (three more than any of the button sets I currently own, for some reason), and a lone stitch marker of awesomeness.

What I'm doing these days is pretty much:

a) frantically finishing schoolwork and yet another round of applications
b) freaking out over how incredibly close Christmas is, and how incredibly soon I'm leaving town to go be around the majority of my knitted-gift-recipients
c) reassessing my Christmas Knits list and concluding, over and over again, that there is no fat left to trim
d) working even more on the schoolwork that will not end
e) sleeping
f) considering with trepidation the need to order more yarn for gifts that are on the Christmas Knits List Bubble
g) indulging in dreamy reveries about all the things I'm going to knit just as soon as this Christmas knitting is done
h) knitting.

Progress is being made. Mom's Steering Wheel Cozy, matching Gear Shift Cozy, and matching Short Shorts* are done, blocked, and ready to be wrapped. One other gift is done, three are in progress, and one is waiting in the wings. When I list it out like that, the un-done part seems like a lot and I feel like I need to sit down even though I'm already sitting down. So perhaps we should move on.

The things I'm planning on knitting after Christmas include an Amanda Hat in green malabrigo left over from my My So-Called Scarf, Wavy in fingering-weight Woolen Rabbit and Sundara, striped (although this pair of yarns might go better in a linen stitch or even woven...), an Old Shale Smoke Ring in some KP Bare sock yarn that I dyed with soda ash before I found out that soda ash basically destroys wool, rendering the Bare probably unfit for socks but still nice for something else, and mittens with owls on them. Among other things.

I've noticed that not only do I not have knitted woolen items that appear to be part of a set that go together, nearly everything I have that I've knit clashes violently with everything else I've knit. Doesn't seem possible that so many things could all not match - shouldn't you reach a point where you've come full circle and run out of colors? - but yet, that's where I am with it. So my black Coronet hat (knit before Ravelry) gets a lot of wear. This year I'm going to try to turn over a new leaf of if-not-matching-at-least-coordinating-for-the-love-of-Pete. We'll see how it goes.




*with Fun Fur, of course, the kind with the little puff balls every 2-3 inches