Merry Christmas!

I'm having a hard time believing Christmas is here. The past few months were kind of a blur and the holiday just snuck up on me. I took my last final exam last night (4 essays in 3 hours, anyone?) and today arrived at my last day of work in high spirits. I have almost 1.5 weeks off, starting now!! Woohoo!

On my way home I stopped to do some very-last-minute shopping and am now good to go. All gifts are wrapped and ready for the car. The newly-groomed furry family member has a new snowflake sweater to sport at the families' houses. The pie I made is in the fridge, waiting to be transported. All is lovely.

During my vacation time, I've got lots of lovely things planned but should have plenty of knitting time. I'll be able to knit February Lady while watching tv, socks while in the car, and now...Muir! I mentioned that she was returning and I plan to take a good look at her on Friday.

It's snowing

At lunch today--instead of working on my reappointment paperwork or revising the final paper that's due tomorrow or studying for Monday's final exam--I knitted the heel of a beautiful hand-dyed Midnight Sock, listened to the radio, and sipped tea while watching big fat snowflakes fall outside my office window.

(Okay, so I worked on the paper tonight and will go to work early tomorrow. Sometimes you just need some knitting in the middle of the day so you don't pull your hair out. ;)

I ended up knitting most of the heel flap. Yay! These socks are hopefully being gifted in January and I should have plenty of time to complete them.

While it took me ages to knit half of sock #1, that's allowed because I was also working full-time and taking two grad classes. I took a couple of days off around Christmas and, between longish car trips and time on the couch, should be able to get some knitting done then.

Unfortunately, the following were not meant to be done by Christmas:

• February Lady Sweater. I was hoping to wear this on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day but that'll never happen at this point. I'm at most 1/2 done with the body of the sweater and still have to knit two sleeves. *sigh*


• Christmas hotpads for the aunts/uncles. To keep my sanity, I've decided that I will gift felted hotpads in Christmas 2009. It's absolutely impossible for me to knit twelve 11 x 12.5 stockinette squares and have them felted and dry by Christmas Day...

Green stuff being added to blue

Muir has resurfaced! It's been a while. I haven't had much knitting time lately, as evidenced by my lack of posts, but I'm itching to knit some lace. And I want a rectangular shawl. Muir fits the bill and I dug her out of the knitting basket with hopes of starting her before Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, the Christmas hotpads are way behind schedule. I don't know if it's realistic for me to finish 10-12 of them with multiple papers and final exam looming. We'll see...

One blue project is done (the Special Olympics scarf, which is in the picture below) and February Lady is getting knitted when I get a chance to watch tv. The pattern is easy enough for me to do while following the plot of The Office and I'm enjoying knitting with the soft Malabrigo. The sock is good travel knitting and comes with me in the car (when I'm a passenger) and on the bus.

I was looking forward to attending my guild meeting tonight but had to be responsible and stay home for the reasons mentioned above. (Boo to being an adult!) I had all of my stuff together and ready to go. :(

In the picture you see the charity scarf I was going to hand in and yarn, needles, & notions needed for the hands-on workshop about fixing mistakes, sewing on zippers (something I really want to learn!), and more. I emailed someone to see where I can send the scarf and will now finish up this blog post so I can work on my papers.