To Knit for Christmas or not
I figured I should post this before the end of the Christmas season. I seem to be a different kind of Christmas knitter every year. Two Christmases ago I made pairs and pairs of flip top mittens, scarves, and hats for friends. Last christmas I made 16 large knit stockings and 5 mini ones then bought gifts to fill them with and sometimes filled them with knitted items.
This year I knit nothing. It was a strange feeing to not have deadlines, lists of items to keep track of for people. But I just couldn’t bring myself to. There was no real reason for this. Every one appreciates the knits I gave them, and I had many a friend talk about pulling their stocking out again this year. But I just didn’t seem to be able to find it in myself to make another year of knit gifts, even if I had planned to go smaller. I spent most of the time I would have been knitting like made reading books on my kindle on the bus and basically chilling out.
I think this likely was because I had a lot going on near the end of this year and adding knits to it just seemed like asking for trouble. Will I knit Christmas presents next year? Time will tell, this year as late as October I still expected to start the Christmas knitting and that just never happened so who knows what will happen next year. And there are still plenty of random requests from friends I need to fill. Because at the end of the day I like knitting but even if I keep a quarter of all the items I make I will still have a ton of knits.
This is in part because I tend to make a lot of small items, and I am becoming a faster and faster knitter, which is a bit scary as my knitting groups tend to joke there is fast and there is at my pace. Maybe I should just start knitting throughout the year and see what december brings. Keep a bag of gift knits. Another reasons the stockings worked so well for me last year is I tend to shop in the stocking stuffer way naturally.
Maybe I should remind myself that this Christmas thing? Happens every year at the same time and plan accordingly. I know November is mostly allotted to NaNoWriMo every year, yet I expect to put out a ton of hand knits while writing every day… uh what? And not doing anything like 11 shawls in 2011 this year, means I have a lot of freedom on what to knit when.
So I like ending these posts with pictures. I went through the stash on the 1st and grabbed some photos. Remember how yesterday I said I should stop buying lace? Um so that’s in my stash and that doesn’t even include the 2200yds in purple, or the 1100 yards in black.
