Christmas Knitting!

Well, I ripped out mom's mittens and started them over in the round. I showed DH what I had done "so far" and he asked, "Where's the first one?" Heee Hee. That was the first one. He did agree that it looked neater. I'm back up to working on the thumb gusset. I'm going to have to look up in my good SP5 reference book to see how I should continue. Also, I didn't have a set of 5 DPN in size 6, so I bumped it up to size 7. Hopefully, they're not too "lacey" for Connecticut winters.

I got Christmas lists from my family who lives near where Norma's daughter goes to school. They asked me, who lives in FLORIDA for a supersoft scarf for the daughter in navy, black, or white (who's going to college in Oklahoma) and mittens for the mom (any color). Perhaps they are asking for handknit gifts???? I happen to have some Caron Simply Soft in a very nice Navy in my stash - that I was using for a baby blanket, but it's no dye lot color, so I can always get more. I'm thinking it's a good yarn to keep in my stash - it's very useful and nice to work with. I have some royal blue yarn that is some kind of wool, but doesn't felt that I got in the sale playpen at my LYS on my first venture there. [The tag on it reads "Brown Sheep Co Mitchell NE, 4 oz, color 7111. Went to the Brown Sheep web site and it looks like it's Waverly Wool, which is intended for needlepoint but knits nicely at 3 sts. per inch on size 10 needles.] One hank, perhaps enough to make mittens, maybe I'll have to do a "contrast" cuff, but the yellow LB Jamie that I'm using in my mom's cuff should work with this too, or maybe the navy Simply Soft. It just tickles my heart that they're asking for knit Christmas gifts.

My folks are driving down, so I figure I can always send these things back up to the great white north with them on their way home. My mom has been going out to the metropolitan Whitesboro area pretty frequently to help take care of her mom.

For some reason, I'm able to cast thoughts of my shrug aside and prepare to race through these two new projects. FWIW, I think I'm going to do the bell sleeve shrug or the one that's Anthropologie-inspired, but leaning toward the bell-sleeve one, esp since that's written for a yarn that's similar to what I'm using for it.