Why I'm Thinking About The Holidays Already.

Winter holidays might seem like ages away (especially for those of us who just began the fall semester), but as a crafter, I begin to feel the pressure of the deadline around this time of the year. I always tell myself that I'm going to do holiday knitting/crafting throughout the year to lessen the rush, but then I get distracted by other things and end up in the same situation every year.

This morning, I asked my followers on Twitter if they were working on any holiday presents yet. I got a wide variety of answers, from "I haven't even thought about it" to "I have 20 sweaters done!" (That last one may or may not have been an exaggeration.) 

 This picture is from a snow day a couple years ago. Don't be fooled into thinking this is the norm for my holidays; this is the most snow I've ever seen in my life.

Especially in the past couple of years, I've narrowed down who I'll craft more elaborate presents for, and only a select few will get anything knitted. Even then, I've never been able to crank out big presents for people like I see others do. Sure, my mom deserves a nice fine cardigan knit on size negative 7 needles and my dad deserves a pullover that would sit in his closet forever because he doesn't want to mess it up, but if I did that, I wouldn't be able to make anything for anyone else. Sorry Mom and Dad... maybe some day.

I also got to thinking about my blog and how holiday crafting will effect it. Both my mom and my fiance (maybe more than that, I don't know) know where to find my blog, so I can't exactly go around posting my projects that I'm trying to keep a secret. On the upside, I'll have a lot to show right after December 25. I'm going to try to keep up with some projects for me on the side, and of course I'll have art projects from school to share until then.

If you make gifts for people, have you started yet? Do you have a game plan?

-- Laura

Broadening My Knitting Horizons.

First, check out what I'm blocking today!

 

Yay!The Make Up Your Mind tank is done! Tomorrow I'll post some proper pictures and give my thoughts on it.

The past couple of weeks have been kind of frustrating. I've been busy, I'm trying to plan my wedding, Jose has been busier than normal, and I've just felt stressed in general. On Monday, Jose called me out on being overly stressed for no reason and told me I needed to do something to relax. I listened to him and took most of Monday to just chill out. I spent a lot of time spinning some yarn and knitting.

My knitting group meets on Mondays at my favorite local coffee shop Art Six, so I got there an hour early, spent some time to myself knitting and drinking some iced green tea (which apparently I hate. I love hot green tea though...).

Taking time to focus on nothing but my knitting really made me feel better. I got things accomplished, which made me feel good about myself.

On another note, yesterday I was thinking about how long I've been knitting and how much knowledge I have about it, but yet there are still techniques out there I've never tried. For example, I've never knitted socks toe-up, but only top-down. Now, because I do consider myself quite knowledgeable about knitting, new techniques don't scare me. I just haven't gotten around to some things.

I decided that I would knit some toe-up socks using the Madeline Tosh sock yarn I got at Fiber Fest this year. I settled on Absinthe from the Spring 2009 Knitty. 

Check out how much I got done last night!

Okay, so it's not much. I've done a bit more since then though. So far, I'm loving toe-up socks! It reminds me of how magical it felt the first time I did a top-down sweater.

I must have these done by the time it gets cold! Since I'm in Texas, I have until... December. I think I can handle that.