'Twas the night before Christmas...

...and all through the stash, not a needle was stirring... um... wait... no knitting? What? The words are English but they make no sense. And I'm not talking last-minute holiday knitting, either, even though... well, okay, you caught me, I'm doing some last-minute holiday knitting because I was suddenly inspired to make a warm woolly hat and neckwarmer for an aunt I haven't seen in a while, and I have until Sunday to finish. And I still haven't finished DH's socks, so they'll be "around Christmas" socks, and that's okay. He'll still get them.

I did finish this Spiraluscious cowl (Ravelry link) for my mother-in-law, done up in silky soft domestic cashmere from Breezy Meadows cashmere farm:

I've got enough in the skein to make one for myself. This is the softest, most luscious cashmere ever, what cashmere really ought to be, not the stuff coming out of China these days.

When we visited my mother-in-law last summer, I found out she likes angora, wears woolly socks in the winter, and likes blue. So I put all three together and knitted these woolly socks with angora cuffs, using the zig-zag sock pattern from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn:

Got the woolly, got the angora, just need the blue, which I knew would be hard to match when using two different yarns, so I went with white angora and undyed KnitPicks sock yarn, then used plain ol' food coloring and lemon juice as an acid to dye them in the crock pot:

Which turned them a lovely, mottled blue:

My son is getting a new hat, the Jacques Cousteau hat in KnitPicks Swish, except I overlooked the fact that it's supposed to be a 3x2 rib and did a 2x2. Oh, well, it still looks good, and it's fully reversible this way:


My son's girlfriend is getting a Grace Lace Beret and Basic Fingerless Mitts (Ravelry link) in KnitPicks Gloss. She and my son just spent last weekend giving us one of the best Christmas presents ever: they cleaned out our garage for us. Yeah, that's one special girlfriend. And definitely knitworthy. In fact, she bought some good yarn so she could rel-learn how to knit over Christmas break. She's a keeper!



Once all my holiday knitting is done, it's back to knitting for MEEEE!