Gifties underway...

So, Christmas knitting is underway. (Note to self: start Christmas knitting way earlier next year. Like, January.) The pirate socks are for my kids and possibly my niece, if I get that far. They aren't particularly difficult, just time-consuming, as socks can be. I'm doing all three pairs with different main colors to keep things from getting boring. But then I think what if I don't get them done? Or what if I only get one and a half pairs done? What then?

Enter the mitts. I love fingerless mitts and have finally started making them. Everyone on my list might end up with a pair of mitts this year, frankly. Even the kids. And that way, if the socks don't make it, there will be something knitted under the tree! I'm enjoying knitting the mitts more than the socks right now, though, so you know which one I'm working on most. (The mitts pattern is from One-Skein Wonders and is called, appropriately, Fingerless Mittens.)

Then there is my m-i-l's white shawl. Oh, lawdy, if one more person requests an all-white knitted item from me, I may have to use my DPNs as weapons. To keep it interesting, I chose a complex lace pattern to do...and about 60 rows in, I realized something important...I really don't like knitting lace that much. Yeah. Hm. I mean, it's pretty, but what a freakin' pain if you make a mistake. (Ask me how I know.) So, just another 135 ever growing rows to go on that one. Must start dedicating some serious time to that project daily if I want to have any hope of giving it to her on the 23rd (when we're doing Christmas with that end of the family) and not have it still on the needles with a note promising to finish it.

Then my husband came to me the other day and said, "You know how you always want to know what you can knit for me?" And I am, because he won't wear sweaters, or scarves, or gloves/ mitts, and the socks I started for him just aren't happening for some reason. Just not feeling inspired on those. Anyway, he handed me some obscure outdoorsy catalog with a picture of a headband-y thing through which the beak of a baseball cap fits. That's what he wants. Okaaaaay. I've never seen such a pattern, but it shouldn't be too hard. I'm envisioning circular knitting, short rows (to make the top and bottom at the back wider than the rest of it) and a big bound-off buttonhole of a thing in the front. I'm probably envisioning it far more complicatedly than necessary, actually. I usually do.

And then there are the people on my list who I have no knitted item planned for. I wonder...will they care? Will the be disappointed? Feel miffed? Perhaps a few extra pairs of mitts will be added to my list for that purpose. Hm.

At least I can say, now that I've finished my harvest pullover, I am being very good and not doing any of my own personal knitting. I really, really want to work on my Malabrigo sweater, but that will have to be my reward for getting through the Christmas knitting.