All Obligations Complete

As of last night, I am officially done with my gift knitting. Even better? I didn't have to be done until the end of the week, so I find myself with bonus knitting time! The final items to be crossed off my list were these cuties:

Pattern: Here We Gnome Again by Sarah Schira
Yarn: scraps of Cascade 220 Superwash (yellow and royal blue) and Berroco Vintage Worsted (navy and white)
Needles: US 4 (3.5 mm) and US 5 (3.75 mm)
Started/Completed: December 11/December 24

These might get a little more blinged up before they're gifted (perhaps a pompom on the tip of the hats and a school pennant in the form of a piece of paper on a toothpick), but I'm counting them as done. I am enchanted by them and am a bit sorry that I'm giving them away, so it's very possible that I'll be making more to keep. We had to take a trip to Michaels on Sunday to buy stuffing and poly pellets, so now I'm quite well stocked to make some additional gnomes. My plan is to have these sitting on the bed waiting for my brother and his fiancee when they come down on Saturday, and then they'll be able to take them home when they leave. I'm still undecided about whether or not to sew the hand of the two gnomes together (a snap might have been a good compromise, but I didn't think of it when we were at the craft store).

Now that all the gift knitting is done, I'm turning back to fun knitting. Mainly, that is knitting for me, but Rainbow will benefit from it as well. I cast on a new pair of socks for me on our way to the airport on Saturday morning, and I started a pair for her on Sunday night while we were waiting for dinner at a restaurant. The latter pair has seen much more attention over the past two days.

Rainbow's socks (on the left) are plain toe-up stockinette using the Fish Lips Kiss Heel template, and I made a new foot outline for her before I started. Her feet are now 8 inches long! I finished up the toe and knit most of the foot yesterday and did the rest today (about 3.5 inches of leg while we were at the movies, too).

My socks -- the more colorful ones -- are a special treat. My dear friend Lisa (the dyer behind Fibernymph Dye Works) had texted me on Thursday that she was sending me "a little something" that she hoped would arrive on Friday so that I could open it before we left. Thankfully, we live close enough that it did only take a day to arrive, and I was so excited when I opened the package and saw a skein of her special Dyer's Favorites 2018 colorway that she is offering as her final Yay of Christmas. She had previewed the colorway on her most recent podcast episode, and I'd told her how much I loved it and how I was going to have to set myself a reminder so I could get online and order a skein when they went up. So she surprised me by sending me one! The stripes in this colorway are the colors she's dyed most frequently the past year, and the contrast mini skein has speckles of the same colors. It's been a while since I last knit myself a pair of socks, and coincidentally I've had a couple of older pairs bite the dust recently, so these will be a lovely treat.

If you are celebrating Christmas today, I hope you have a wonderful day surrounded by those you love. If, like me, you aren't, I hope you enjoy your evening and that you are surrounded by yarny things. Cheers!