Another year; another bunch of UFO's.

Well, here it is, December 31st, 2010.

Yup, another year done.

This wasn't my most prolific year in a number of field's. eg. blogging, knitting, quilting, cooking, cleaning...and it was, what it was.

I went back to work! Would not of predicted that one!

I definitely accomplished more spinning than any other year; more about that later.

I'm going to guess, that stash enhancement was somewhat less than it has been in previous years. I say "guess" because there is no way that I am actually going to try to document and keep a tally of such an achievement! That would just take up too much knitting time!

Speaking of knitting time...
Here's the recipient of a knitted toque. He wore it most of Christmas morning and has been seen wearing it out and about since then. Yay, a satisfied customer!
The excitement you're witnessing is his reaction to opening this.
One of the top gifts this year.

Another satisfied customer is the recipient at our clinic gift exchange. This was a fun, quick knit and I think that it turned out beautifully. Isn't she cute? She's always cold too, so when a knitter gets a cold person's name for Christmas...well, stand back; there's gonna be some stash diving!


So when I last blogged I was preparing to attend my Annual Knitting Christmas Party and just in time too. It seemed that this was just the evening that many of us needed to get into the Christmas spirit. Good friends, good food and good times was all it took. This was one of the treasures I brought home from that gift exchange.

A cute little knitting Snowbaby. I love him. I took him out the next morning and inspected and studied and look:

He's keeping the yarn (real yarn!) that's he's using for his sock in a bag on his back! Who thinks of this stuff? He now sits in a place of honour on my mantel in my bedroom and makes me smile whenever I look at him. Thank-you fellow knitter.

We were all treated to so many gifts...a lovely knitting bag, a calendar, some chocolate, a "Love Soup" mix (Yum!), a crocheted topped tea towel, Christmas Tea Towels folded to look like a purse and a tool kit! And that was before Secret Santa and the exchange!

Let me tell you a little about our exchange. There's a lot of laughing and a lot of oooo's and awww's, but it's not pretty! It's down right cut throat at times and usually there is a battle over not one, but several of the gifts brought to the party. And you know what?

"It's not a party until somebody shoves yarn down her bra." Just sayin'.

Even then, it's still not safe from those thieving thieves that call themselves 'friends'! I just think that when pretty sparkly yarn finds it's way into a person's bra; then it should be allowed to come home with that person.

I hope the restaurant lets us come back next year.

There were even some "extra" secret Santa gifts and I was lucky enough to be sent home with a bag that read, "Do not open until Dec. 25th". I love getting gifts like that. There are always so few gifts that I don't know what they are and that are really a surprise under the tree. My Avon lady always leaves me something as a surprise and I've joined sock yarn gift exchanges, but then you still know that you're getting yarn and a pattern, don't get me wrong, it was still fun! I made it quite clear that I thought it was time the kids put a little something under there for their favourite mother...my son and I gave each other the same thing. Good times.
Anyway, back to the knitter's secret Santa gift...I was lucky enough to receive a wonderful batt of 50% mohair and 50% lambswool to spin! (Again I'm sorry, but 5 photos is all this blog can handle; so I'll show you another day...next year!) It's a gorgeous charcoal grey that I know exactly what I want to spin it into and what it's going to go with!

Thank-you Secret Santa. Nobody gets me like you. All my family could say is, "What is it?" with that look of serious doubt about my sanity and total misunderstanding of my excitement while hugging and petting and giggling.

I love my knitters.

So much so, that this was my gift to them.

14 grams of handspun 100% Merino that I named Blue Christmas. It's a 2 ply of hand dyed roving one of Royal and one of Jade. I was going to call it Royal Jade, but then it was a Christmas gift and tada! Blue Christmas was born. I'm pretty happy with it, but I think that I'm not spinning my singles tight enough. I keep trying to spin thinner singles and while they may indeed be thinner, they certainly 'bloom' after plying and washing and drying (again, there are some neat photos of this process...for next year).

That sort of shows how Christmas went around here. My dad, my brother and his family came here for Christmas dinner and once again there was good food and good fun.

The title of this post refers to UFO's. What I've shown you, however, are some of my FO's. As of December 1st, I knit only, and I mean, only, for other people. It was gift knitting everyday; all the time and I was o.k. with it, but still did not finish all that I wanted to. I had some gift giving grace due to the fact that one gift could wait until the new year and I thought I might be able to do it too, but then I read the Yarn Harlot. The significance of that post?

I spent the entire day yesterday tidying/playing in my basement/studio/room. I was touching yarn and needles and patterns, but I wasn't getting any knitting done!

Cleaning, tidying, organizing and controlling clutter are not my strong suits. I'm more of an idea kind of girl and it requires a tremendous amount of energy for me to remain focused or even interested in completing these kind of tasks. The only saving grace is that this is my room and when I do clean this one, it stands a much better chance of actually staying the way I left it as opposed to the rest of the house. While I usually end up spending New Year's Day tucked away in my haven, this Christmas had my room just one box away from a Hoarder's Intervention. (Shudder. Can you imagine? A crew just shows up at your door because you've been ratted out as a person who can't seem to say 'no' to yarn? Or fabric?) So, I started at one end of the room and carefully moved through the whole space. I was feelin' pretty good, and then my husband came down and asked what I was doing?

"I'm tidying and organizing," I said, while standing just a little bit taller and grinning, "all the knitters are doing it!" (again, thank-you Stephanie)

"You're just moving stuff from one side of the room to the other. What have you thrown out?"

"--------- "

He decided that he didn't want to go there...again, and went back upstairs.

'Thrown out?' Who said anything about throwing anything out?

I'm not finished, but both kids have noticed a BIG difference and what is left is clean and far more accessible and far less intimidating, but it will have to wait for another day, because today?

TODAY I KNIT!

I WILL FINISH THAT LAST CHRISTMAS GIFT AND TOMORROW I WILL DELIVER THAT LAST CHRISTMAS GIFT AND ALL WILL BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD!

After that I will once again look at my bunch of UFO's and figure out which one to tackle first. How do you decide?