Bye November

November turned out to be a busy month for me and before I knew it Thanksgiving was here.   I know that I received 2 great packages, from a wonderful swap spoiler, Palehouse on Ravelry, and from a close friend, Marisol.

Palehouse sent me my swappy package from the Love Bites swap, a vampy themed swap.  She gave me the coolest vamp package.

Check out these goodies I received!

First the packaging, this is what I found when I opened the USPS box..

It's you standard photo storage box, but an awesome one.  With bats and a glow in the dark moon, and some cool ribbon with a steel key.  I was totally geeking out over the packaging, its the simple things that I love.

Such great gifts and beautiful yarn!  I still haven't decided what to do with the yarn, but I'm excited for when I find a pattern.

Oh, and on the outside of the wrapped Witching Hour book by Anne Rice is this totally cute black Raven!

Such a great package, loved it.  Thank you again to Palehouse 8)

My second package received, such a surprise, from Marisol.  A belated birthday present, she really knows how to spoil me and knows my tastes, well our tastes are the same, makes it even better!

 

I got the cutest mini lace sock kit with beads! Sheepy gift card, Decorative box with a pretty purple pendant necklace (worn this a few times already), Sheep bookmark (I'm a reader!), Fragrant soap (smells so good), black clutch purse (totally cute), Sock Summit WIP bag, Sock Summit post its, Beautifully hand-spun, hand-knit cowl by Marisol (100% BFL!), Bronze shawl pin, Socks that Rock Rare Gems.  Everything is awesome!  Absolutely loved all the gifts.  Truly thankful to Marisol 8)

I've had limited knitting during November, have some FOs to block and will share later this week.  I've also finally finalized my new free hat pattern to post later this week.  I'm also a wee bit bummed, just a teeny bit, my pattern submission to Knitty obviously didn't make it because I never heard from them, although they do say on their submissions FAQ that if your pattern didn't make the cut you'd get a Dear John letter, but I never received anything.  Don't know if its worse that I didn't receive anything or not, but oh well!  I shall keep on trying 8)

Onto December...

I'm getting there

Things have been very hectic, as they probably are for everyone else during this time of year. I actually believed that over the past holiday I would get a ton of knitting time in, when really I got almost none. Since this is my first holiday season knitting, I've never known how to balance my holiday tasks with knitting and I failed, obviously, because I knitted nothing. I did however manage to send out a total of 5 swap packages to 5 of my spoilees. Yes, you read it corectly, "5"! I had signed up for some swaps without knowing the due dates for at least 3 of them. 2 I knew of, and one really wasn't a swap, more of an exchange of gifts. You can imagine my alarm when I found out the due dates for all of packages and looked at my calendar to realize all were due within the same week, and that week happened to be Thanksgiving!

I didn't have the heart to drop out so I forged on stalking my prey spoilee and chatting it up with them. I knew getting out these packages last week would be almost impossible so I made sure to keep my spoilees informed that I would send out this week and YAY! I did! I dropped all of yesterday nice and snug at the post office, PHEW! This is the last time I'll balance that amount of swaps I tell you, it was pretty crazy there for a minute especially when a few of them had some pretty specific requirements for knitted items or type of items, etc. I am very happy though with how each turned out and I'm hoping all my spoilees like the gifts I choose for them, including the yarn I scored for them too! Now I'm down to just 1 wee bit swap, which thankfully isn't due until the middle of January. It is a secret swap so I can't say who my victim is, but my stalking has already started.

Now that's done, I had 3 Traveling Scarves in my posession from 2 of my groups and new these were next on my list to finish and send on there merry way, but as fate would have it, I received another scarf yesterday, this time from my Tweedy group, and AHH! Now I really have to start moving my booty. I finished Gramma's Noro scarf last night, I had this done prior but I didn't like the way it was looking for my addition so I frogged and started over and am happy with the turnout. Gramma's scarf is really turning out pretty indeed!



The end with the brownish color to it is my addition, using a Box stitch pattern. It's hard to discern from this photo what the pattern looks like, but it kind of looks like a checkerboard effect.



I'll weave in the ends on lunch and mail this out today and quickly finish the other 3 I have so that tomorrow I can start my vastly late knit gifts for my family. I'll be making a pair of fingerless mittens for my daughter, a scarf for my son, and a "Che'" hat for my hubby, which about 30% done. For my compadre, Lynda, I'll be making some cabled socks (unless I find a different pattern), and for my godson I'll try to make him a blanket, a blue and red one at his request. He said to me, while touching my own knitted blue wave blanket knit in Alpaca mist blue with Blue Hand-maiden silk, "Nina, I, um, I, can you make me one? But, um, with red and um, pink?" to which I said "Are you sure pink or red?" to which he said "Um, yah, yes, red, ok thank you Nina". How could I turn down a request like that? He's so adorable and looks like a 2nd grader who's really only 4 years old. Or maybe I knit the blanket for his birthday which is in January, and knit or crochet him a Scooby-Doo with a toy gift for Christmas? He goes bonkers for Scooby-Doo, can't say I blame him, Scooby-Doo is my fave of all, and I can still watch the cartoons if there on T.V.

I got me some knittin' to do...

~Rocky