Lightning post about slow things

Today was supposed to be a Writing Day, dedicated to coming up with a whole new opening to my "Dances with Kevin" essay. I recently recognized (in horror) that I've been working on it for a couple years now. I need to be DONE with it, send it along once again and hope it finds a home.

But it was a tough week because of a) lingering migraine pain and b) trouble sleeping, not to mention c) teaching all my classes and doing all my homework, so I was d) exhausted, and e) needed a nap. So instead of a Writing Day I had a Recovery Day. (LMNOP? ZZZZZ?)

And then I thought: hey, how about a blog post? I could do like Anne and Kay over at Mason-Dixon knitting again and write a fast one with a time limit! Woohoo! So here we go... And this time, it's a KNITTING post!

I always make something knitted for Dexter and Patrick for Christmas. It's rare that I finish them before the actual day, but I usually finish during the vacation, or shortly thereafter. This year, not so much. (See: flu; lots of work to finish over the break; tired.) I am still working on them. Arg!

So here are the knitted things, photographed with our Christmas tree as it waited to be picked up on the curb. (Isn't that the epitome of the post-Christmas let-down?)

Patrick's socks
This year he requested socks in a thinner fabric, so I used a pattern I've made for him before, the Yarn Harlot's Earl Grey.

 (Sad tree; sock looks kind of sad, too...)

 

 (... but a nice color, yes? And look at those lovely teensy cables!)

(And here's the second one, on the needles at least; 

as of today, I'm 1/3 down the leg...)

Dexter's mitten-gloves
This year Dexter requested mittens, but the kind where you can fold over the mitten part to reveal half-gloves. And he wanted them in mostly black, with a red design thingy. (Knitters, especially ones with middle-aged eyes, will tell you: ARG! not black yarn!)

I had a rough start on these; I've never made a pair, and I didn't have a pattern proper, just sort of guidelines (make a mitten but with a row that you zip out and open, add fingers there, etc.). And at first I was on the cray-cray train and thought I was going to knit them out of fingering-weight yarn (Translation for Non-Knitters: tiny, with toothpick-like needles) with a fair isle pattern (TfNK: a complicated color pattern that requires you to be a knitting NINJA). It wasn't until a few days before Christmas that I realized I should use thicker yarn and that Dexter would be perfectly happy with a simple stripe. So that's what we have here. Mitten one:

 (They look kind of baggy here--because the model is me, and D's hands are now bigger than mine.)

 (Here it is, inside out... with all the ends hanging out. 

So many ends! So much weaving-in to do!)

(Here's the folded-back look... Imagine it 

without all those strings hanging down... 

and with normal-looking fingers sticking out 

rather than something that looks like glow-sticks (???)... )

So, after I sign off here, the next stage of my Recovery Day is teevee time, with knitting. I hope that D and P will see these late presents not as a sign that I am lame and can't even finish Christmas presents properly, but rather as a sign that my love for them will persevere and continue on through all obstacles. Because it will.

May you make some noticeable progress today!

Cheers,
Karen