Unstoppable

I'm trying something new this year. Every year I worry about the Christmas stuff, and I try not to invite the planet to smack me for having confidence. I say "I hope I make it" and "Gee, it's going to be tough but I'm giving it a shot." and every year I get smacked anyway. The planet apparently hates a woosie-pants who doesn't have confidence. This year, my approach is going to be something else. This year, I'm putting it out there. I HAVE Christmas under control. I AM going to finish. It IS going to be something I get licked. The Christmas knitting IS NOT going to get the better of me this year. I repeat, I have it licked. I know that some of you think that this is inviting an arse-kicking, but considering that I get my arse kicked every year anyway, I figure that I might as well dwell in the happy place of delusion for as long as I can. To that end, I am still whipping out the knits in a knit-fate defying way.
See this?

A full pair of socks. Done. Off the list. A full pair of socks in only a couple of days. Hear that Knit-fates? See that? A whole pair of socks for Christmas and they are done and I put them on the pile with all those scarves and there is nothing you can do to undo them.

Yarn is "Muddy Autumn Rainbow" an exclusive STR sock club colour, Pattern "Holidazed" from Anne Hanson, also a STR sock club pattern. (It'll be available to the rest of the world next year. For now, it's sock club only.)

They're a little big for me, which is perfect since they aren't for me, although I love these enough that I'm bummed about that. One gift down - but wait! There's more! (Anybody else hear "it slices, it dices...." in the back of their head?)
I bought Laura's Just Enough Ruffles Scarf, and whammo! In the span of just a weekend...

(Quote from the photoshoot "Sam, try to smile like you don't resent your mother". Sam's answer?
"But I do resent my mother." Ahh, the joys of parenting teens. At least she's honest.)

Pattern: Just enough Ruffles, yarn, Beroco "Cuzco" 2 skeins in "Quenko Sky", though I didn't buy enough (simple math failure on my part, not a problem with the pattern) and needed to add another yarn for the INDETERMINABLE last few rows and cast off. I used Lorna's laces Shepherd Sock, in "Quadra Island" held double. It's a perfect match.

I'm supremely happy with it, and even happier that something else is off the list. See that knitting fates? ANOTHER ONE off the list and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing. No matter what happens after this, you can't take the glory of this moment away. I've tried "not tempting fate" by cow-towing to your vindictive nature, I've tried not inviting your festive abuse in the past because you can't resist the smackdown, you immature and small minded holiday-achievement-haters. I've tried putting my expectations in the dumper and saying that I'll just do the best I can to avoid you seeking acrimonious revenge on me for my haughtiness - but this year? This year I'm not buying it. I know that I made a whole bunch of people nervous in my last post when I said "I have this Christmas thing SO licked" but what they don't understand is that I've tried to please you, I've tried to fly under the radar and not one year have you allowed me to finish my gifts on time - even though I've totally played it your way.

This year? This year I am going to drown you in my confidence. This year-you can bite me.

(Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go make sure that my box of ornaments didn't just implode in the basement. I'm cocky, not stupid.)

Zoom

I worry, when I am leaving the house, that I won't take enough knitting.
(Please understand that I am using the word "enough" here to mean "enough that I would be totally fine for yarn if I were kidnapped and held for 24 hours in a yarn free zone by someone with a fetish for watching people knit at gunpoint - and I then knit 5 times faster than I usually do." )

This has never happened, and indeed I've never heard of it happening, but one time when I decided to pack a little light I had a plane delayed and I came perilously close to running out. (Here I am defining "close to running out" as "I only had one more skein of sock yarn to get through 20 minutes".) It scared me. I can't imagine how I would fill time, trapped in an airport or stuck on a bus (or waiting in line at the bank) without my knitting. It fills me with dread - and if the world knew how much I'm using knitting in public to pretend to be a patient and kind person - the thought of me running out would scare them too.

The upshot of this means that Wednesday night when I was heading to my LYS for knit night, I tossed my current work in my bag (the 1x1 rib scarf) and headed for the door and was entirely seized by concern that I might "run out" or not have "enough". I panicked and ran back in, scouting quickly for another project. (Please overlook that I was going to a yarn store, where if it turned out I didn't have "enough" I could have gotten more. It makes me look unreasonable. Besides... what if something happened on the way there? Considering the risk to both me and those around me, it's negligent to not protect everyone by ensuring that there is not a moment without yarn and its mood altering abilities. Practically a safety concern.) Pulling together a project takes time, and I didn't have any, so I grabbed this month's sock club package (which I had barely just opened - by the way, I checked to make sure that everyone had received their package before posting these... so I'm reasonably sure it's not a spoiler... unless your postie is a terrific slacker.) wound the yarn on the swift, took needles off the table (there are advantages to never putting things away properly) and bolted. I never do this. The decision to knit a new thing is never undertaken lightly or quickly, so I can't say I had much hope that this leap would work out for me... but desperate times....
By the time I was switching from bus to streetcar, I was entirely besotted.

I loved the colour, I loved the pattern- I loved everything about this sock and may (just may) have driving a few friends insane with nattering on about it ad nauseam at knit night. The colour is "Muddy Autumn Rainbow" and because of how it's dyed, (Tina wrote in the dyer's notes) that there will be no two skeins entirely alike. I know she dyed hundreds of this colourway, but I feel confident that I got the best one.

The pattern (Holidazed) is by the incomparable Anne Hanson, so it shouldn't surprise me that I like it... our tastes are so similar that I often feel like she's designing just for me. The knit/purl pattern makes it unisex and breaks up the colours in the dye job in a way I adore, it's got a lot of give but clings nicely to the foot... I love it. Everything about it. In fact, I pity anyone who isn't in the sock club who's going to have to wait until the pattern is released to the general population. Pity I tell you... pity. I was so enthralled that by the time I got home I had a leg, and by last evening, less than 24 hours from winding the wool

I had a whole sock. Dudes. I have this Christmas thing SO licked.

Entirely over it

Check it out.

A sock. (I know. I'm relieved too.)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends and readers. I'm thankful for all of you.
Hope you're enjoying your holiday, and are surrounded by those you love and that which you enjoy.

It's just a Thursday here in Canada.
It is, however, not just a Thursday where I have to go to parent/teacher interviews (which always makes me nervous - I still feel like they could give me detention or something) but also a Thursday where I'm nominated in the Canadian Blog Awards, where I was very gratified to kick arse honoured to win last year. I'm nominated for Best Blog here, and Best Activities Blog here. If you feel I'm worthy, I'd love it if you gave that a click, you don't have to sign up or anything, and you don't need to be Canadian, just like their blogs. There's some other really, really great blogs nominated, including my dear friend Lene at The Seated View, for Best Disability Blog (although her blog is so much more than that) so do take a little bit to poke around. There's some very fine writing out there. I don't know when the first round of voting ends, but it's soon. (I sort of forgot to mention it until now. I was very busy with the 1x1 rib thing. Obsession has its costs.)

In Retrospect

One of the most interesting (or frustrating, depending on who you are in the process) things about publishing, is how long it takes things to go from start to finish. It takes a really, really long time for things to go from beginning to end. Sure, we can put people on the moon, and a whole computer can fit in your pocket, but it still takes more than a year for a book to go from my head to your bookstore. For the last few months I've been working on the 2010 "Never Not Knitting" page a day calendar, and the whole thing has made me a little freaked out. Firstly, there's the fact that nobody is using the 2009 Never Not Knitting one yet, so who knows what anyone thinks of it, and here I am, boldly churning out the next one, without benefit of any feedback at all. Thursdays in that calendar (and this one) are titled "The Way Knit Was", and for all I know, all of knitterdom will universally agree that you hate hearing about knitting history in a calendar, send me thousands of emails begging me to never do it again, and I will be helpless to change a word of it.

Then there's the fact that I'm writing entries for dates so far away, that I worry that something will happen in the world that makes what I'm writing now totally irrelevant. The day you guys will start using this is more than a year away, and there's no way that I can know that what I write for April 10th of 2010 will make any sense at all, considering that I don't know what will happen on April 10th of 2009. Sheep could be extinct, wool could be rare - knitting could be revolutionized by the invention of something I can't even imagine right now (self installing zippers would be good) and here my calendar will look stupid and ignorant. I worry. (I know that me worrying excessively will come as a terrible shock to all of you. It's so unlike me.)

I've been trudging along, finishing these things, making decisions, writing, writing, writing.. all with an eye to the deadline of December 1st, and I think maybe it was making me a little more stressed out than I thought it was, because today (oh glorious, glorious day) I finished the thing and emailed it to my editor (days early, I feel so proud) and sat here completely stunned by what happened in my head.

My first thought was "Wow. I'm so glad that's finished. What a load off my mind."

The second one?

I think I might want to knit something other than 1x1 rib.