Christmas knitting

Last year I set out an overly ambitious Christmas knitting plan, and I failed miserably. My first mistake was waiting until the week after Thanksgiving to start. My second was in trying projects that were too time intensive - scarves and hats and mittens for everyone! Instead, I got one scarf, one hat and two pairs of mittens completed, and only the scarf and one pair of mittens were actually finished in time for Christmas.

And I can't forget about the cute little felted snowmen I planned to knit for all the neighbors. I managed to complete two rather lumpy little guys - they took much longer to knit than I anticipated. When I was finished with them, they looked so pitiful that I couldn't bear to give them away for fear that they looked like a craft people at homes for the insane would make, if they were allowed to even have pointy sticks in the first place.

This year I have set out a much more sane plan, and I started several weeks ago, which means I'm already ahead of the game. I have one hat, one shawl, and one scarf already finished and one hat half way done. I have one more hat, two more scarves and two pairs of mittens to go.

I know it sounds like a lot, but the scarves are my little bits of fluff, and I can knit one in two days without a problem. The hats are simple watch caps that are knit on big needles with thick yarn and take no time at all. The only tricky things are the mittens. Those involve actual patterns and some more complex knitting.

My incentive for getting all the gifts finished quickly, aside from Christmas, is that I have several projects in my queue that I want to knit for ME. I've given away pretty much everything I've knit for the past six months, and I'm feeling a bit selfish.

And now I'm off to knit.