The joys of being a knitter at Christmas!

Today while I was out running a few errands I realized that Christmas is only 26 days away. I know you might be thinking well of course it is, today is last day of Nov. But it really hit me! Holy smokes do I have a lot of knitting to do and fast! All I can say is the stores and radio stations have really desensitized me to the whole holiday season. This summer I saw Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff displayed. The day after Halloween a local radio station started playing Christmas music every weekend. So now I am frantically trying to see what I can get done and what will be put on the back burner. I can't believe I have wait until now to think about all of this. Last year I was finished in Aug! My list of almost FO is pretty slim! I have to re knot my sister's no sew fleece blanket. I gave one to my SIL for her birthday and she loves it but all the knots were coming undone. I have to seam my bro and sil 's dog sweater. I have about another 2-3 ft on my other bro's scarf. If I ever finish it, it will be a miracle! It is such a boring knit! I haven't even thought about what I am giving Mom, bro and Sil. I decided I would put off the tree skirt until next year so I can actually spend time making it the best it can be! Somehow I don't think it is fair to only knit something for their dog! Mom is hard this year since she is losing weight. I really was hoping to knit her a sweater but she keeps shrinking so I have no idea what size to make. I might give her a swatch of the yarn I want to to use, a picture of the pattern and a lovely card saying it will be knit when she is at her goal. In fact that is exactly what I am going to do! Of course I will get her other gifts but I think this is a good compromise!
I was so tempted today to just get gift certificates for everyone but somehow I just can't quite bring myself to do it. We've always been really big on Christmas gift and everyone really appreciates when I knit them something. It just wouldn't feel right to hand out cards to Barnes and Noble or Dicks.
I hope all of you are farther along in your gift knitting than I am. I'll post pictures one I have actual FOs.

I had no idea

that it had been over a month since I have written anything here. I told everyone it would take me a while to get used to the idea of blogging. Life has been nutty here . I finally got the first oddball blanket a couple of weeks ago. Here are a couple of pictures. I used Caron Simply Soft in Autumn Red. My stitch is called Loop Pattern. I found in the 365 knitting stitches calendar on Dec 14th. The blanket is on it's way to Cristy in Georgia. If you want to know more about the blanket you can read all about it here
I am also going to be knitting on the 4th oddball blanket. It has a while until it gets here. I will be sure to post when it does!! :)
School is a hectic as ever. I only have a few more week of this semester- yippeeeee! I will pretty much be done after Thanksgiving. My professors this semester don't require us to take the final if we have an A average. Which I do after much hard work and about a million and a half flash cards.

The socks I had started in my last post were finished. However they were terribly wrong. I mean really really wrong. It was a horrible mathematical error of almost epic stupidity. I misread the directions for the decreases and decreased the ankle by 20% instead of 10. Of course with the after thought heel I was completely unaware of my mistake until I had finished and the sock recipient ( my sweet Mom) couldn't get them over her foot. I was so embarrassed! I frogged them and am now working on the same pattern with different yarn. I really was so upset by my mistake I can't look at the other yarn for a while. I know it wasn't the yarn's fault but something had to pay. I really enjoyed knitting socks. I have learned from my mistake and I am sure it will never ever ever be repeated by me! I love the colorway of the new yarn I am using. I'll post pictures soon.
Maybe stupidly I have started knitting a Christmas tree skirt for my brother and sister in law. Who have everything. Or if they don't have it they go out and buy it. I never really know what to get them and this is the first year they are living in their house so I just decided one day to make them one. I was going to make one for my Mom too but she loves the quilted one we have had for years. I am using this pattern. It's marked as advanced but I am not sure what is advanced about it. I guess I will have to see as I progress. I am hoping to have it done early so they can actually use it this year, but I will be happy if I finish it by Christmas. I have to knit 6 identical panels so this might get a little boring. I hope it turns out and more importantly that they like it! As I said earlier I am just never really sure what to get them. I was so happy this year for their birthdays, which are 6 days apart, they got a puppy. I put together a gift basket filled with puppy stuff. I gave them a paw print kit, a kong Wubba (Bentley's favorite toy), a bag of rawhides, a puppy toothbrush and toothpaste, a blanket, and a dvd called Bow wow tv. The dvd was a hand me down from Bentley. My 85 pound lab was scared of it. It basically is a dvd for dogs to watch while they are home alone. I put it on one day while I was getting ready to leave and he came running upstairs and hid in his bed. Which is exactly what he used to do when I vacuumed. I tried it a few weeks later and got the same reaction. I have no idea what the dogs that are barking are saying but my B doesn't care for it. Apparently Malden the
puppy barks back at them and really seems to like it! This further convinces me that Bentley doesn't understand that he is a dog.
Well all you readers out there in blog land I am tired. It has been a really long day and I really need to get some sleep. Thanks for stopping by!
xoxo,
Holly