Projects in process

With the holiday season rapidly approaching the pressure is mounting for my knitting to be more productive. The good thing is that handmaking my gifts drastically reduces the amount of money that I'm spending on my family and friends over the holidays. If that makes me sound shamelessly cheap, I'm willing to live with that, as I'm paying my own way through college and money can be amazingly tight for me at times. The only problem is finding time to work on all of the various projects between work and school.

Here are the projects that I need to finish and by when:

1. Navy blue and beige shawl for my cousin. Needed by 10-22
2. Grey and pink felted bag for my mother. Needed by 11-09
3. Grey scarf for my brother. Needed by 12-25
4. Grey slippers for my brother. Needed by 12-25
5. Blue blanket for my father. Needed by 12-25
6. Pink scarf for friend. DONE!!!
7. Blue scarf for co-worker. Needed by 12-20

I'll add more to the list as the projects arise. I just keep getting orders for more projects for the holidays.

The truely amusing thing is that I worked at a pool all summer long. I had nothing to do but sit around and knit or read or twiddle my thumbs. Did I start working on things then? Nah, it was too hot to work, or I figured it wouldn't be that hard to finish things off. Plus I wasn't expecting my father to ask me to knit him a blanket for Christmas. The fact that he asked me for ANYTHING is, in itself, a miracle. This is the man who always says "nothin'" when you ask him what he wants for the a gift. I guess he assumed it was cheaper for yarn than for any other gifts I might buy. This blanket will make or break my holiday knitting schedule. Knit in blocks of color ten rows high by 150 stitches long, it can take nearly an hour and a half to finish a single color, depending on how hard I'm really working on it. And I still have 19 blocks of color to go. That's a few days of steady, constant work. But I'll get it done, come hell or high water.