Deadlines Met!

I suppose the office messing up and not giving me enough work last week did have one advantage - I finished the fingerless gloves before seeing the intended recipient! I again stayed within the color family prefered by my big sis. (Refer to last year's knitted gift to see the trend.) Didn't realize up front how much of a pain it would be to match up the right spot in the yarn to start the second of the pair. Self-patterning yarn in colors is so much simpler to match up than one in all shades of grey. Took at least 4 tries to get it just right. Then I ran into a spot midway through the 2nd glove where a new piece of yarn had been knotted to the old to continue the skein. Seriously, they shouldn't be able to do that with self-patterning yarns! Of course, it wasn't knotted in the right spot to keep up the pattern so I got a bit more practice at matching. Grr. Yes, I'm anal. If I was to spend this amount of knitting time on these, I wanted them to match as closely as possible. They are a bit baggy through the hand, but I just didn't have time to reknit the first one to fix that so had to make the second to match. It's not so bad though. I didn't realize my sister's hands are shorter and a bit wider than mine so they actually fit fairly well with a bit of extra room for a thin pair of gloves to go under these in colder weather. My next pair of fingerless gloves will be a different pattern (or possibly a tweaked version of these), but I'll definitely be making some again! And thankfully, these were very well-received! =) I also found some who'd be more than happy to receive the Branching Out scarf I can't wear. =D

The hooded scarf for my mom was a big hit too. We exchanged gifts Christmas Eve before she headed off to work the night shift. I think maybe she wasn't keeping in mind the fact that I am only home 2-3 days a month when she chose my gifts though. Over a month ago, I'd asked for a yarn swift or ball winder - both things I really want and would be really handy to have on hand even just a couple days a month. I got a new comforter for my bed and a wall calendar that I'll see just enough to change over to the next month. Ah, well, at least the comforter is the right size to fit the bed I have in storage (rather than the full-size one I sleep on here two nights a month). It's the thought that counts, right? There's always my birthday next week...