Holiday-ish Hoopla

Here we are, the day before Thanksgiving, and uncharacteristically, I am NOT manically trying to clean my house. That is because we have been abandoned by our family this year. Yep. All of 'em. Out of town. I'm trying to remind myself that there have been Thanksgivings past where I wished we could celebrate small, just the four of us at home together. Now that it's happening, I'm kind of sad about it, but I'm trying to make the most of it just the same. Guess it's one of those "careful what you wish for" things. ;)

Despite knowing it would just be the four of us for dinner tomorrow, I've had some major FAIL at down-sizing the food for our meal. A 20 pound bird and two pies are the main items over over-the-topness. At least turkey freezes well, and can you really have too many pies, ever? I think not.

 Pumpkin in the front, Chocolate Chip Pie in the back.

So, Thanksgiving plans, such as they are, are under control. Amazingly, so are my Christmas ones, at least the Christmas knitting ones. I'm mentally plotting out all other Christmas plans and really should commit them to paper in list form soon before they spin out of control. But one thing at a time.

I now have four gifts completed -- two pairs of socks, which I've posted before, a pair of mittens, and a gift that shall go unnamed until it has been given to it's recipient. The mittens may end up being reserved for a January birthday gift instead, since they are for my mother-in-law, and I'm also knitting the shawl she requested. It is coming along nicely, despite the mind-numbing whiteness of the yarn. Haruni is turning out to be an easy enough pattern to knit while also watching TV, so that's made the vast whiteness far less painful to work on. (As a side note, having finished all the back season episodes of Psych on Netflix, I've moved on to Doctor Who, which I'm finding quirkily delightful, and I have to say I find Christopher Eccleston to be rather hot, and I'm already sad to know that he's only in the first season.)

Here he is, after three of the four Chart A repeats. I'm debating adding a fifth repeat. We'll see how I'm feeling about that when the time comes. I'm using white from the Loopy Solids collection.

I've also finished a lacey beret which took only two evenings to make. Actually, it is finished except for the blocking.

This is the Beret de Printemps, knit in Malabrigo Silky Wool, Archangel colorway. Being modeled here by my swift, it looks less like a beret than the head of some colorful, bulbous mushroom. 

This morning I cast on a helmet liner, which is for my hubby. He does not need a helmet liner, as he doesn't wear a helmet, but he does work outside in the cold during winter, and he wanted something to cover his face (but not a scarf). I tried to design one on my own that came out ridiculously unwearable. This, however, is exactly what he wanted, and so I'm glad to be able to knit one for him this year that should turn out with far better results.

I'm knitting it out of Malabrigo Rios, Playa colorway. And oh-my-gosh! This is the softest, nicest superwash I've used in a long time! Aside from the fact that Malabrigo seems to employ cats to skein their yarn (argh! the tangles!), I love it!

There are other gift knitting ideas in my mental queue, but I'll save them for when (and if) they actually materialize.

My one other recent FO isn't a gift, but it's the hand spun sweater I finished, ripped out, and reknit on needles two sizes smaller. It's finally done and I do love it. I'm so glad I reknit it, because it fits wonderfully now. The designer hasn't released the pattern yet, but when she does, I'll be sure to link it here.

On the writing front, I've done a remarkably good job of keeping up with my word count goals for NaNoWriMo this month. What's even better is that at nearly 40K words in, I like the story I'm writing. That's not always a given. I'm no where near even a quarter of the way done with it though, so here's hoping I can maintain the daily writing groove even once I pass the 50K goal of NaNo.