Halloween and Christmas Knitting

The boy and his family received the care package I had sent them at the beginning of the week. I filled the box with scarves for his mom and sister, a big box of Iranian black tea spiced with cardamom, an Iranian fruit-roll up type snack, home-made Halloween-themed candles, and Halloween stickers and decorations for his nephew. For him, I sent a traveler's coffee mug, which I decorated the insert with pictures of us and from this summer, a knit cardboard mug warmer (pictured in a previous post sans buttons) because he hates the wastefulness of the cardboard sleeves, a bunch of pictures of us (including a number of kissy-face photos), a pouch of reece's peanut butter cups (his favorite candy), and the orange and blue journal I bound for him after he saw the rooster one I made in class.

He was incredibly touched by all of it. I really enjoyed making all of that stuff for him and his family. I love that they appreciate it, rather than think it's a waste of time the way my family does.

This very slighly puts the pressure on for Christmas, though (1) I'm sure they don't expect anything from me, and (2) I've already been working on Christmas gifts for the last month. I've already knit three pairs of fingerless gloves for two of his sisters and his sister-in-law. I am giving the rooster journal to his oldest sister. I already knit and plan to weave in the ends and block his mother's falling leaves scarf later today.

There's a pair of blue Fetching in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, a pair of pink Cabled Fingerless Mitts also in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, and a pair of light pink/orange Cable-Os in Debbie Bliss Fez.

Still left to do include making reindeer hats for his nephew in Seaside and niece in Rhode Island, finding a cute hat pattern (and actually knitting) for his two other nephews in Rhode Island, knitting baby hats for his twin nieces and baby nephew. I should probably knit hats for his brother and brother-in-law, as well, but I'm not quite sure how much time I will have before the Holidays to do that. I found this really cool yet manly scarf pattern in Son of Stitch 'n Bitch that would be perfect for his father.

The boy's mom and younger sister apparently loved the journal I made for the boy and kept trying to claim it as their own. I think I might make another long day of it at the UCC to whip up another couple of journals for them, especially since I'm already giving away one of the journals I made to his older sister. That means that I need to step up my present to his older sister so that things are relatively equal.

I thinking about giving her the Summer Flies shawl that I'm working on using the indigo fingering weight yarn I picked up while with her and the boy at the Genesee Country Village this summer. I absolutely love this pattern since (1) each row is written out clearly, (2) each section is different so I never really have time to get bored with it, (3) and because it's knitting up very quickly. I've only really worked on it for 3 days and I'm just about at the last section. Since the pattern calls for 380 yards in either a dk or worsted weight, I'm going to have a whole lot of yarn left over if I follow the pattern precisely since this skein has over 440 yards of fingering weight. I'm a little concerned about blocking it since the skein was hand-dyed using natural materials and bleeds onto my fingers very slightly as I'm knitting with the dry yarn. Hopefully it will be ok.

Please forgive the pictures... my camera battery died sometime last week and I still can't find the charger. The photos above were taken using photobooth on my laptop.