Chistmas Knitting

I started a lot earlier last year and I didn't feel quite the pressure that I feel this time around. This year, I didn't really get started on the majority of my projects until about September. But I only have a few left now, and for the most part I think I will finish. The only one on the family who won't get a knitted gift for Christmas this year is my mom, but she'll get hers for her birthday in January. I'm working on Vilai socks for her and I'm pretty sure I won't have them done in the next 10 days.

The other gifts are as follows:
An Ishbel made with gorgeous green Sanguine Gryphon Gaia Lace for my sister, Carolyn
A Koolhaas in Malabrigo Worsted for her husband, Kim
A Koolhaas in Malabrigo Worsted for his twin brother, Kevin
Bobbie Gloves in Wollmeise 100% Baba Jaga for his wife, Sandra
Angee Socks in SG Little Traveller, color Mexico, for Kim & Kevin's mother, Vera
A Shetland Triangle in Wollmeise 100% Rittersporn for my Step-Mother, Sandy
Plain Socks from Zitron Trekking XXL for my Dad
Plain Stocking Knit Cap in Punta Yarns Merisoft for my Step-Father, Dick

I'm also hoping to finish some mittens I'm making for my sister's friend Koren and a pain of Wollmeise cabled socks for my friend Robert before the 25th hits. We'll see.

Would you eat this?

My mom grew this totally scary tomato in her garden this summer. She didn't do anything special to it, but it became a serious mutant. The other tomatos from the plant were okay. I wonder what that means? I know I wouldn't want to eat it.

Finished VILAI!

I finally finished my Vilai socks (by Cookie A). They're really beautiful. They took me longer than expected (mostly because I left them languishing in the pile for too long) and I didn't manage to get them done in time for the KAL, but I have them wear in a month or so when it starts to become "sock wearing weather".

They were a little more time consuming than some pattern because I really had to follow the chart carefully, but other than that they weren't all that hard. I stopped half a pattern repeat short in the leg, otherwise they would have been a too tight on my calf, which meant that I used the row 28 cable decrease at the heel, instead of the row 14 decrease.

Always last minute.

I'm desperately trying to finish my Vilai socks before the end of the month. That means 4 days. I've just started the gusset on sock #1. I think I can do it if I spend a lot of time knitting this weekend. I finished the Summer Sox last night. As usual, I got off to a great start at the beginning of the month, but then I got distracted by other things (I knit one of two Florenz socks, among other things) and again I'm trying to finish up before the end of the month for the Sock Innovation KAL. Plus there was traveling this month, 3 days in Edmonton for the Fringe Festival and then 4 days in Niagra-on-the-Lake for Josh and Heather's wedding. What a lovely affair that was. Heather looked like a model. Thinking about Josh as a young boy not so many years ago made me choke up a couple of times. We also spent a lot of time with Greg and Melissa and the tim-bits (my name for Tim's grandbabies). Everyone just fell in love with Vada. She's a beauty. This is a picture of Tim holding her at the wedding.

We have touch down!!

I finally got it working. Yay!!

Slow going.

I've been working on these Stephanie van der Linden socks (when I should be working on one of my many other WIP - oh well). They're slow going, but they're going to be cute. My first ever short-row heel.

Still trying to make the damn blog thing work!

I don't know - am I just a big dummy? Why do I have so much trouble with this??