Christmas knitting recap

Whew. Now that all the gifts are opened and received, I can blog about them!

I knit three pairs of socks for Christmas - one for my brother, one for my mom, one for my dad. First up was my mom's pair. I knit these in the summertime.



(Rav details)

The yarn is Knit Picks Swish DK. (In fact, all the yarn for the socks is Swish DK.) I will always associate these socks with my Granddad, because I knit on them while hanging out in his hospital room this summer. I knit away on them while watching "Patton" and Westerns while he snoozed.

My mom really loves them - she posted a picture on Flickr this morning saying she wore them and said two things: 1. "These feel amazing!" 2. "I need to learn how to make these!" She is quickly growing bored with knitting scarves so I bet socks are soon on the horizon. :-)



(Rav details)

These were my brother's socks.

And these are my dad's socks:



(Rav details)

Please ignore the fact that one of my dad's socks is inside-out!

They each have size 13 feet, so DK socks were a great way to make the socks in no time flat.

Next up - hat and mittens for my brother's girlfriend, Megan.



I won't bother with the Rav link since they're just a basic ribbed hat and mittens with a 1x1 cuff and thumb gusset. I winged it and they turned out pretty nice, if I may say so myself. I bought the yarn for this (BMFA Icelandic) in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Hooray for using vacation yarn! It was about $30 for the skein, but I got the hat, two mittens and I'm going to get another hat out of what's left (for me!). So a good value, all in all. And the colors are lovely.

I'll be back later today or tomorrow with another FO post. I got a little carried away with my previous "end of 2009" wrap-up. I finished something after I posted that. Whoops!

2009: A Year in Knits

Merry Christmas, everyone! I've had this post in the works for a while and (now that Christmas gifts are given), I can share:



By the numbers, here's what I knit in 2009:
13 pairs of socks (12 adult-sized, one baby-sized) (Also: seven for me, six for others)
six hats (five adult-sized, one baby-sized)
three shawlettes
two pairs of mittens/mitts
two scarves
two cowls
one baby sweater

I'm quite pleased with everything I knit this year. I have tallied my "mileage" at knitmeter.com and I'm at 4.37 miles for the year. That is about 7,691 yards!

As for stashing - well, I made a dent in knitting down the sock yarn stash, until vacation came along. I think for the most part that I was mindful of my purchases - something I blogged about a year ago.

I accomplished two of my three knitting goals this year:

1. Knitting a lace shawl: I accomplished this with Ishbel.

2. Learning toe-up socks: Mostly done! I took a very fun class with Wendy Johnson a few months ago, where we learned toe-up cast-ons and how to turn a heel. I'm going to try to finish my first toe-up sock in the next few weeks - it's been on hiatus because of Christmas knitting.

I didn't get around to goal no. 3: knitting a sweater. (well, I knit a BSJ, but I had an adult-sized sweater in mind when I made that goal!) I think I'm more of an accessory knitter.

My knitting goals for 2010 include knitting at least 12 pairs of socks (one a month) and knitting a larger lace shawl.

Merry (week of) Christmas, y'all!

I'll be checking back in this weekend with a year-end knitting wrap-up post. Can't do it until my family opens their gifts, of course!

I'm still hard at work on the Mara shawl:



I just have a few more rows to go, but with 500+ stitches on the needle, it's taking a while!

I knocked out a pair of tiny socks for a co-worker who's due in February:



Each sock took less than 24 hours. So sweet! (They're made with the leftover Socks that Rock mediumweight in County Clare.)

Hope you're enjoying your holidays!

a non-update

Good morning! I'm still in Christmas-knitting land.



This is a hat (since finished but not photographed) for my brother's girlfriend, Meg. It's knit out of BMFA Icelandic - a rather chunky single-ply yarn. I made the brim extra tall in the hopes of giving it extra warmth for winter in Ohio. The skein was enormous, so I'm hoping to get a pair wrist/arm warmers out of it, too. Or maybe mittens. I'm not sure I have it mittens in me - there's something rather soothing and not threatening about the idea of just knitting up a tube for wrist warmers.

Other than that, I've got about half a sock left and my Christmas knitting will be DONE. It will be a relief, but I remembered this week that my co-worker is due to have a baby in early February and I haven't started a gift for her. (I'm thinking of knitting a sock monkey toy.) And so it will begin again...