Christmas gifts

Whelp. It's that time again. Time to make Christmas gifts (or Hanukkah or Kwanza or Diwali, although I think it's passed already, or whatever holiday you celebrate---winter solstice?).

When I started knitting, I vowed I would never knit a gift for anyone. I kind of broke that last year with some smaller but incredibly soft scarves. This year, I'm going all out (DON'T LOOK, AUNT MEM!!!)---

61 stitches of seed stitch across in merino wool yarn (it's left over from Henrietta). I took 3 skeins and Wrap Style with me on the plane to San Francisco--I had grandiose plans of knitting up a storm on this cross-country flight. I was so wrong. I began and frogged a number of patterns from the book, most of them the "grand plan" wraps by Ann Budd. What a mess of instructions they were. It didn't help that my circular needle was too long, either.

When I returned, I thought I sorted out those instructions and thought I needed more yarn, which I bought in a delicious "mushroom" shade. Well. This attempt, too, failed.

I'm now doing this scarf in the Henrietta leftover yarn. I love seed stitch. it's fun to knit, keeps my interest, and has a nice spongey springy feel to it. Plus, the scarf is reversible with this kind of stitch. It's a wide scarf, nearly a foot, something sumptuous Aunt Mem will be able to wrap her whole head with. And still, the whole thing is uninspired and feels a bit contrived and I feel inadequate for not being able to decipher the Wrap Style patterns.

So. On to Fleur from Rowan Vintage Knits.

The back is finally done and packaged away. The front sides will have to wait while I do the scarf for Aunt Mem. To top it off, I FOUND A MOTH IN THE APARTMENT!!! Fortunately, it's not as bad as for Sigga. But now a moth with several unfinished *WOOL* projects around the place has upped the ante. . .