It has been since I last bought yarn!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Christmas Knitting Countdown

You know, it's not like Christmas shows up randomly every year and we find ourselves going "GEE I totally didn't see that coming". Christmas has come every year, during my exsistence, on December 24th and 25th. And yet, despite these very consistent dates, I seem to have the yearly "I need to knit this by Christmas" panic attack right around the end of November, when time is limited.

Since I made my grandmother socks this summer- I decided, last minute of course, that it would be nice to make a pair for my grandfather and my other grandmother as well. (Grandmother (#2)'s planned pattern can be seen here... hoepfully.)

And so, with the husband's blessing I set out to the yarn shop to buy some "manly yarn" to set to work on grandpa's socks- but I hit a little snag.

I got this far on the orginal idea:



... only to discover that they were just too baggy and big and would never fit anyone's leg properly. I don't know why I was in denial that long, that I got THAT far on the sock, but I was forced to do this:



... frog (fr - og; the art of ripping back your work and watching all the stitches that consumed hours of your life disappear like they never happened.) Froggy is hard not in practice, but mentally admiting your defeat.

Once I wound the skein up again:


I set forth knitting a smaller pattern and what do you know... I finally made some progress! Behold, grandpa's sock... in progress!



The goal is to get this puppy done by the end of the week and cast on sock #2. If I can finish knitting grandpa's socks BEFORE December, I have 15 days to knit my ass off for grandma. (I don't know how grandma would take to the concept of me knitting my "ass" off for her-- I hope she doesn't mind.)

As if that wasn't distracting and consuming me enough- I also hit a major snag with the baby blanket that I'm all but neglecting right now.


Yup! That's a knot. We know how I feel about knots. Much cursing and wailing was involved. Thankfully 1 visit from the very patient MiL, and she sat, PATIENTLY, (so unlike me), helping me wind out of this miserable mess and back to 100% useable yarn again. I SO owe you Phyllis!

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