Obligatory Knitting

Thank you for all your compliments on the Seamless Hybrid. I must confess that I think I'm prouder of it than I have been of any other knitting project I've completed; I caught myself looking at my husband -- well, at his sweater, anyway -- all throughout Thanksgiving dinner and petting him whenever he came near. The family and friends were much impressed, and my uncle even asked me if I would knit a sweater for my aunt -- the very same aunt who taught me to knit many, many years ago! That was a request to which I could not say no, so there will be some yarn acquisitions in the future. I'm thinking another EZ seamless sweater, perhaps a stranded yoked design. Any and all ideas are welcome.

We had a fairly quiet weekend and avoided all the malls and shopping areas on Black Friday. In fact, other than going to the supermarket, the only shopping we did all weekend was a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond for some much-needed items: a proper drying rack for faster blocking and a cover for our bathtub drain so I could finally use it to wash larger knitted items. I used both right away to finally wet block the Seamless Hybrid, and it was amazing how quickly it dried (not mention how nicely a proper blocking allowed the stitches to relax and even out). As you can see, the racks (I wound up buying three) are serving very nicely to help with my sock washing:

I did do a fair amount of knitting over the holiday weekend, though mostly for others. On Thanksgiving day, it was more of these:

Since then, I've been working on some items that might shock you if you're familiar with the types of things I normally knit.

This Friday is my office's second-annual hallway sale to benefit the United Way. Last year, most people brought in odds and ends they had around the house, and I brought in a bunch of novelty yarn scarves I'd knit for fun with no intended recipient in mind. People just went crazy for them! So this year, I decided to make good use of the freebies that were in the Stitch 'n Pitch goodie bags. I'm hoping people will shell out some big bucks for these, especially as it's for a good cause. The benefit for me? I'm finally moving all this novelty yarn out of the stash.