Three months to go

Have you seen the date?

So now, it’s all about the Christmas knitting; in the midst of my stashdowning attempts, I got inspired to knit cowls for some of my cousins, amigurumi critters for the kids in the family, socks for my dad and a scarf or shawl for my mum, hats, ...

And then there’s the regular autumn knitting: socks, gloves, scarves, hats for the boys & myself.

Oh, and this morning I happened upon a ‘what are you knitting?’- thread on the aplayfulday podcast group on Ravelry – and I had to look, and now I have to cast on a Georgia cardigan. And a Fuse. And there’s still the Owls sweater lurking – everybody else is making it, so I’m feeling a bit left out. A bit.

I didn’t spend much more than about an hour, though – did I? – browsing through cardigan patterns and my stash to try to combine elements from the two ... finally, it hit me that I have quite a bit of Arwetta in the Perfect Storm colourway that I used for the Bigger on the Inside shawl and that I was halfway planning to use for socks and gloves – I don’t have enough for the Georgia, but I can get some more. And the colours in it – ‘serious and kinda spooky’ – go well with the darker-than-planned blue I’m using for the Carnaby skirt. So, a matching skirt and cardigan ...

Okay, deep breaths.

A list or two might help.

Finished objects:

• I did finish my Bibliophile socks, and I like them, and they’ll keep my feet nice & warm.
• The second Fibonacci scarf for Thomas is done and about to be blocked.

Works in progress:

• I picked up the Regrowth shawl that had snoozed for two months, ever since I realised that I couldn’t finish it in time for the wedding in July. I’m almost done tinking the rows in blue, so that I can do all of the edge (again) in purple; it will be my Christmas shawl.
• A Carnaby skirt: I dyed a bunch of aran weight wool with a gold thread in it for a dark blue skirt; the yarn was left in the dye pot a bit too long and came out somewhat darker than I had planned for. But hey, it’s a design feature :o) And a skirt can be dark. It’s slimming, right?
• Still working on the Hitchhiker: it’s my knitting for reading right now.

Soon to be cast on:

• Cowls for cousins for Christmas: four cowls for the female ones (how does English manage with a genderless word?!) and a hat, I think, for the boy/young man. I have my eye on the Windschief by Stephen West.
• Watson socks for Victor, as soon as the newly dyed sock yarn is quite dry.
• A shawl for my mum for Christmas, again as soon as the yarn is dry. This warrants a comment: having a 100 gram / 420 meter skein, I looked for a pattern in Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders and found the Celeste shawl. Pretty. I then looked it up on Ravelry to put it in my queue; browsing through the project gallery, I soon found that a lot of knitters had run out of yarn, omitted sections, or used more yarn than called for. Problem. Since my yarn is hand-dyed specifically for this purpose, I can’t just get more – and anyway, I shouldn’t have to. One Skein Wonders, people. So I found another shawl in the same book, the Wisteria Arbor, and checked to make sure that it can actually be done with one skein. Thank the stars for Ravelry!
• The Georgia cardigan ... my fingers are itching for this one.

I have more knitting plans, of course, but I’ll save those for next time, otherwise I’ll be mentioning the same projects week after week after week :o)

So now you’ll have to excuse me, I’m going to go knit.

Happy knitting!