Finished!

It was grueling, but I managed to do it! I finished the dreaded Angel Stocking!

It didn't turn out TERRIBLE, but it's not my best work, and it sure was difficult to send this to my sister and call it good. However, she called me Tuesday, upon receiving the package in the mail, and she LOVES it. So there. Mission accomplished.

I did cringe inwardly as she mentioned that her daughter (my niece, Melisa) and her hubby definitely want more children. They will make more adorable babies, I'm sure. The question is, who can I find to knit more stockings?

In other news, I went from thinking I could knit or crochet a hat for every single great niece and nephew. I have 15 of the little critters. I'm a great aunt fifteen times over. There's no way. I started to crochet a hat about seven different times from seven different patterns, and I soon realized, these are not the quality of hats I had in mind. What I had in mind were classic knit hats complete with cables and maybe bobbles for the girls. Maybe if I start in January of 2012, I'll have them ready for next Christmas. But in 2012, there will be two more greats born, for sure. It's an army, I tell you.

So I gave up after those seven false starts, and began a sweater for Jack instead. It's working up nicely in bulky yarn. I'm attempting a seamless yoke sweater with some Fair Isle patterning on the yoke.

My older son has requested a knit squirrel on wheels from Knitting Mochi Mochi. He would also like a hat of some sort. Squirrel was started yesterday, but I'm keeping it secret from him.

In still other news, I have a thing for cables now. I've been thumbing through two great books in particular by Melissa Leapman. She is a designer whom I took a class from at Stitches Midwest in '10. She's a fantastic teacher, by the way, and a great book author too. Lovely patterns, great technical writing. I want to knit everything in cables. We'll see. Maybe I'll design Christmas stockings replete with lovely classic cables. In one color.