Plain vanilla

Yippee! I finally finished the last holiday project for my in-laws: plain vanilla mittens for my husband's sister. I knit them from Lopi on US 4 and 7 needles. I'm especially pleased with how the top shaping turned out. This is very close to how my grand-mother used to make them. I used the pattern for the fingerless gloves/mitts from Lopi 24 though I forwent (is that even a word?) the fingerless part and the hood and knit them as simple mittens. This used up all but a few yards of 1 ball of Lopi. That means I still have a full ball left so there may be some of these in my own future...

Now the challenge is my own family...there's a lot of folks and not nearly enough time to knit for all of them. So far, I've got the branching out scarf for my mom and nearly one completed sock (the first of the pair) for my sister. I also have a one skein wonder for my neice. That leaves one brother-in-law and my 5 year old nephew without knitted gifts. What to do? What to do? There is no time to finish all these projects. I'm thinking of giving them birthday knits instead...that should spread out the projects nicely and give me more time to knit them thoughtful (rather than last minute) gifts.

I'm sure they don't expect knitted items anyway. Other than my one sister (who's got socks in the making already) none of them have showed any interest in my knitting anyway. I still feel guilty though. But hey, there's only so much time and with Jujube around the amount of time I can devote to knitting varies greatly from week to week which makes it really hard to knit against a deadline. Okay, I'm making excuses. I shouldn't. It's really gonna be okay. At least I have non-knitted gifts for everyone. Plus it's really too late now to worry about it. I still have to scrub the house, grocery shop and cook for Christmas dinner. I've got bigger fish to fry (so to speak) so I am going to release the guilt: one...two...three...there, I feel better already!

Okay, but I still need to finish my husband's sweater and would love to knit a candy cane hat from Handknit Holidays for Julian to wear to church on Saturday night...maybe a scarf too? My mother-in-law gave me a great big ball of unidentified red wool this weekend. It looks like DK and the pattern calls for worsted weight but I'm thinking perhaps a double strand would work? I also have an unidentified ball of white DK yarn. Could I be lucky twice? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Cheers!