Winter holiday decor is a let down

Week one has already come, and while I'm technically a day late (shhh, don't tell anyone), here's my update on the One Row at a Time socks for 2014:

That's 7 little rows, reader.  Seven adorable little rows, each knit (more or less) on each of seven different days.  I mostly kept to the one row per day part of the agreement, although there was one day where I had to catch up on 3 rows.  It's not a perfect system, and I think nailing myself down to sitting down and doing exactly one row per day is unrealistic, and just setting myself up for failure.  I'm happy with the Wednesday deadline, and I'll keep letting you know how it goes.  Okay?  Deal.

In other knitting news, I started and finished a whole project in just a few days.  I made an entire fingerless mitt, Beer Gloves by Kurt Fausset, featured in Son of Stitch 'n Bitch, in one afternoon/evening (read about it here), and then I cranked out its partner a short while later, also in one afternoon/evening.  And while the first post about these mitts had my girlish red-nailed hand modeling the man mitts, here they are on a genuine, bonafide man:

So rugged and manly.

I don't know how many of you received Christmas money as youngster (or if you still do, as an oldster), but that was never a thing in my house.  I had two great-aunts who would each send $10-20 every Christmas from England (and sometimes they couldn't be bothered to get Canadian dollars, so I got pounds), but that was it, and it was hardly something to write home about (although I always wrote a hand-written and thoughtful thank you note, because my Momma raised me right).  Once I joined Fuzzyhead's family and started making regular appearances at his family Christmas gatherings, I was brought into the inner circle and I started receiving Christmas money from his grandparents, just like he did.  It's weird and different.  I've read/heard that even after all the thoughtful people in the world put great care into choosing a gift that you would love and appreciate, receiving cash is still the number one gift choice of recipients everywhere.  Isn't that sad?  Well, the point of the story is that I received Christmas money this year, and it came in the form of a MasterCard gift card.  I had $100 dollars burning a hole in my wallet, and since it was in credit card form, it was only natural that I do a little online shopping.

I've been queuing colourwork projects like the dickens since just before Christmas, when I watched Home Alone (as part of our annual holiday tradition of watching all the best Christmas movies, obviously) and was hit with a sudden NEED to knit Kevin's moose hat:

I went searching high and low on Ravelry for a pattern, and one doesn't seem to exist (I'll tell you more about that next week).  But while I was there, I found a bunch of other colourwork things I want to make:



Mitten with Nordic Pattern



Polar Bear Chullo



Northman Mittens



Reindeer Socks



Anders

And there's even more in my favourites list, this is just what I actually plan to make in the near future.  So I merrily logged on to KnitPicks and bought myself a bunch of yarn for colourwork projects, and it just arrived this week!

There's nothing like getting a package in the mail.  It's like baby Christmas.  I ordered a bunch of similar colours, and it took me longer than it should have to sort them out from each other for the projects they will one day become.  Sitting on top of the pile are a few balls of Swish DK for the Mitten with Nordic Pattern.  These will be for one of my co-op students from work.  She's only working with us for one more semester, so I've given myself a March 1st deadline to get them done.  The rest of the box can remain a mystery to you until next week, it's good for you.  Delayed gratification is the definition of maturity.

Onward,

vrock