Christmas Knitting

Right now, this is my desk.

There's a red knit elephant (Elijah number 5), on hold, but eventually to be given to baby Ruby. There's the turquoise cotton washcloth I just finished for grandma, sitting on top of the Noro striped hat and cowl I made for Mom. There's an unfinished hat for grandpa and an unfinished hat for dad. Plus a mini sock for our Christmas tree that I need to remember to pack.

Usually I love knitting for other people. Who am I kidding, I still love knitting for other people. But this year, I started my Christmas knitting on December 9th, aka Much Too Late. And this year, for the first time, my Christmas knitting includes a sweater. See, I'm pretty modest with the list of people I knit gifts for. My mom, my dad, my sister, and my grandparents about covers it. So I'm okay. But I have a lot of knitting to do, augmented by the fact that we're visiting my grandparents before Christmas, so the deadline's even sooner for them. Which is why I'm not using the brilliant plan I had to make grandpa a hat that uses the tweed leftover from his scarf last year as a stripe. Because said yarn is in Wisconsin and I am not. So I went to Downtown Yarns, which I continue to love, and bought some yarn. And I'm making him a really basic mostly stockinette hat with some gray/beige/black/white handpainted merino from Punta Yarns. Which is nice, and will work for him, but is not the perfect matches the scarf from last year hat. Oh well. What can you do? And the plan was to make grandma two washcloths, but so far I only have one, so the plan might turn into 1 washcloth and a soap sack. And then Kaylee's sweater, which I'm loving and is going very very quickly, thank god. I have about an inch left on the body and then the sleeves. And I'm done with mom's hat and cowl set, which turned out lovely, and have a tolerable start on dad's extra-long to actual cover his ears hat. But I've come up with all sorts of wonderful selfish knitting ideas, and I want to start them, but I can't. After finishing my first pair of socks last week, I've become entirely enamored of the idea of handknit socks. I've decided that my knitting goal for 2009 is to make myself a baker's dozen of handknit socks, in rainbow colors. Red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yello-green, green, blue-green, blue, light blue, blue-violet, purple and red-purple socks. That's the plan. I'm starting with a pair of Flickers in Sundara Grass, but I'm not working on them until I am done with these presents. Nor am I starting the entrelac beret in Ravenclaw colors of Madeline Tosh Worsted, which Downtown Yarns now carries. (Ink and Violin. Even the names are perfect for Ravenclaw. Yes, I'm a dork.) Instead, I am knitting a lot of hats. For my relatives. And I'm excited about them. The punta is working up into a really nice manly blend of colors and I love the darkside stitch pattern, which I'm using for dad's hat. The fabric is so squooshy, and I'm excited about figuring how to make the decreases line up right. Plus, despite the fact that I would have liked another stripe on Mom's cowl, the colors are great and she'll love them. And I love sweaters. There's nothing more satisfying than knitting a sweater. But right now, what I really want to do is wind up the Mad Tosh.