I managed to whip out quite a few presents for friends and family members in time for the holidays. I'm proud to report that they were even completed before our 9.5 hour drive to Western PA. (I had originally anticipated much last minute car knitting with the clock ticking like the Tell Tale Heart.) Can I remember everything I made, or is some lost to the post-holiday black-out?
- Hedera socks - for my boss Elaine at Curves. I have taken so many finished socks there to show the ladies in my Zumba class that I had to make her a pair.
- Scalene scarf - for my wonderful friend, Darlene (besties since 2nd grade!)
- Scalene scarf - for my other wonderful friend, Crista (also 2nd grade BFFs!)
- Chunky slippers - for my mother-in-law
- Chunky slippers - for my grandmother (who unfortunately has majorly swollen legs & feet so I have to reknit her a giant pair and my mother claimed the original ones)
- Sashay scarf - for my mother-in-law (her birthday is the day after Christmas, so she got double knitted goodies this year)
- Sashay scarf - for my best friend, Lori
- Sashay scarf - for my friend, Charlene
- Sashay scarf - for Francesca's teacher (Note that Dominic made one himself for his teacher!)
Is that it? It seems like the list should be longer, much longer. Or maybe it's just the PTKS talking. (Post-Traumatic Knitting Stress)
I also worked on a few other items during the same time, just to keep things interesting.
My cousin, Cameron, is fighting cancer - a germ-cell tumor in his chest. During the course of his chemo, he has lost 80 lbs and all of his hair. I felt pretty helpless being 500 miles away and unable to help, so I made him a new hat to keep his sensitive, newly-bald head warm. It's a simple ribbed hat with cool decreases at the top. Here is photo of my brother modeling it over Thanksgiving:
I also knit a pair of Cauchy socks from Cookie A's first book, Sock Innovation. I couldn't resist - my friend Leigh knit them in a royal purple and they turned out so cute! (And I don't even like purple!) I had some nice olive green in Plymouth Yarn Company's Happy Feet sock yarn, so these were done by the end of November:
On a whim I decided to whip up a pair of booties since I had been looking at patterns for Francesca's pregnant gymnastics coach, Heather. I had some Knit Picks Imagination yarn left over in the Looking Glass colorway which is so pretty, soft and warm, so that's what I used.
And... Not that I'm a glutton for punishment or anything, but I was also working on my first pair of knee-high stockings - the pattern is Lissajous by Cookie A. I started them in October but they stalled once I realized just how looooong is is from my knee to my ankle. Including the feet, I had over 42 inches of sock to knit along with heels, gussets, and toes. I started them one at a time, got about 4 inches in, and then didn't touch the sock for three weeks. I finally picked it back up, knit past some funky calf shaping (that's mirrored for each sock), cast on the second, knit to the same point, then put them together on a single needle to work them two at a time.
The stockings needed to be done by the end of the year to qualify for the Knit Sock Love knit-a-long for them, so they went with me on my trek to PA where I finished them at my parents' house on December 27th. These socks are cable crazy!
Wow, that's a lot.
And I'm not done yet.
One more pair! Knit entirely during the month of December and using some beautiful Grant Creek Yarn that Chris has bought for me last Easter, I made Kai-Mei socks. I did utilize quite a bit of our car driving time to knit these considering the entire leg is ribbing. The foot pattern was knit at my parents' and mother-in-law's houses over the holidays, and finished on the car ride home on December 31st.
It's such a unique pattern and used a few different construction methods that I had never done before. The first was starting the pattern on the gusset. Every other pair of socks that I've knit have plain, stockinette gussets. Just little triangles on the sides of the heel leading to the feet. Not Kai-Mei - the open pattern starts there on the side of the foot and gradually moves across the top of the foot to the toe on the other side.
The design itself was also unique - using multiple yarn-overs which are dropped on subsequent rows and then later purled together with a live stitch. I should take a close-up photo of the pattern to post. I'll have to do that the first time I wear them.
Thus ends the saga of my November/December knitting projects. My fingers ache just from thinking about all the knitting. You'd think I would be taking it easy in January. Ha, ha, that's funny.
I'll regale you with my January projects soon. I promise.
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