Procrastinating

I should be working on this


That's Icarus. Still. I swear, I am still working on it. And I fully intend to finish it by Christmas. No doubt I will be blocking it on Christmas Eve.

But I needed a little break.

So, I've been knitting these:


Yep... More baby hats. Lisa is collecting hats to give to Caps to the Capital and Jolene is collecting hats for the kids at the Hopkins clinic. (go check out Jolene's site - the details are there. She will be collecting hats of all sizes through January. Help her out!) I made both of these yesterday.

I love the black one, though I kinda messed up the pattern. It's a 14 stitch pattern. I did it over 13 stitches. Duh.



I did the correct number of stitches on the blue one, but you can't see it at all! There are white snowflakes (flowers?) on it if you look really closely!


Today, I started a third hat that I expect to finish tonight.



I'm not sure yet how I feel about this one. It's the same snowflake/flower/star pattern, but I used a crappy rainbow yarn. I'll reserve my judgment of it until I finish it.

I also need to knit two more baby hats for friends. Every year at Christmas, I get together with a group of women that I went to college with. It is the only time I ever get to see them. They live all over the country, but all have family in Maryland. So Christmas is our only chance to get together. I look forward to it every year.

Last year, in a completely insane moment, I decided to knit them all flower washcloths from Weekend Knitting. I think I knit 7 of them in about a week and half. I was actually late to our dinner together because I was sewing the last one together. I paired each washcloth with a bar of hand-made soap. (not hand-made by me!) They turned out to be really nice gifts, but I will never knit 7 washcloths in a week and a half again!

So this year, I've decided to limit the hand knit gifts to two of the women in the group. One is my college roommate who just announced that she is expecting her first child in March. So, I plan to make another black snowflake hat, with the correct stitch count, for her. She is not a baby pastel kinda girl, so I'm quite certain she will appreciate a black baby hat.

And another woman in the group just gave birth to her third son last month. So I'll make a hat for her too. I think I'll do another fair isle type hat, but something other than the snowflake. (I do like that snowflake alot!)

Now I just have to figure out some other little giftie kind of thing that I can make/buy for the rest of the girls!

My mom sent me an email (2 emails actually...) asking what I wanted for Christmas. I sent her a list of knitting books that I want including Latvian Mittens: Traditional Designs & Techniques . She immediately decided that she wants a pair of Latvian mittens. She has never really asked me to knit for her before. I never thought mittens were really her thing, but if she gets me the book, I will make her a pair of mittens. And despite the fact that she can't remember what she had for lunch, I am quite certain that she will remember to bug me about these mittens until they are on her hands. I thought about making her a pair of Eunny's gorgeous Anemoi mittens for Christmas, but I think I will hold off and make her mittens for her birthday in February.

After all...
I still have an Icarus to finish!