Sorry for the little absence there!  Nope, no baby yet.  Just the fun surprise of getting home from work on Christmas Eve to find out that our internet was down, and Bell had no plans on sending someone out until Friday at the earliest.  By the time the internet was back up, I was down, having caught a cold from Jakob.  I spent Saturday taking care of him instead of going to work (Yannick went in my place) and Sunday (yesterday) was a blur of sinus pressure, headaches and attempted naps.  And yet- there was knitting!

Of course, before I get to the knitting, I have a bigger and better completed item to share:

Technically the kids’ rooms aren’t decorated, but I did go through and move absolutely everything of Jakob’s into his new room and set everything up and it is DONE.  He has been sleeping in his “big boy” room (although, still in a crib) since last week and doesn’t seem to notice any difference.  The spare bedroom furniture has been moved into the baby’s room, and all “baby” items and unisex clothes, etc, have been unpacked, put away and organized.  Any final decorating will be done once we know the sex of the baby.

It feels so good to have all this accomplished!  My boxes of office and craft supplies are stacked in the new office, waiting for me to be off work and/or have time to unpack them.  They can wait.  In the meantime at least I know that should I go into labour early, everything else is set for the baby.  I’m going to try and cook stuff to freeze, but even if I don’t get around to that, I don’t care.  As far as I’m concerned- we’re ready!

As for the knitting…I’ll begin with a little spoiler: all holiday gifts were completed in time to be given as gifts.  I’m going to post the photos in the order I finished them, however, so I don’t miss something.  I’m also going to spread them out between posts because otherwise this would be one really long, photo-heavy post.

After finishing Sheldon I tackled my mother-in-law’s remaining sock, and as I mentioned last week, I finished it with plenty of time to spare.

Pattern:  Queen of Cups by Nathania Apple (Ravelry link and Non-Ravelry link). 

Size:  I knit the narrower size.

It is really hard to photograph black socks.  Pretend you can see the lace, m’kay?

Yarn:  Regia 4ply sock yarn in Black

Needles: 2.25mm

Dates:  November 13 – December 18 2008

Modifications:  None. 

As usual you can find my finished (and unfinished!) projects in my “projects” page by clicking the tab up at the top of every page on my blog, and I also have this project in my Ravelry notebook here.

Here are the socks all wrapped and ready to give away.  For each handknit gift this year I made a label on the computer with the yarn content info and care instructions, and also gave each recipient a little bag with a few yards of spare yarn “in case of emergency”.

More gift knits coming over the next few days…in the meantime I’ve got 2 projects on the go.  Once the deadline knits were completed I finally started Kayla’s Lace Cardigan for my friends’ daughter.  I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before…it was supposed to be her “birth” gift, and now Kayla has just celebrated her first birthday.  [Insert guilty conscience here!]  This is the project that I had to purchase the pattern for in Norwegian, and between some online resources and a nice woman from Sweden who volunteered to double-check my work, I managed to translate the pattern.  I’ve been working on it since Christmas Day and it is coming along nicely. 

Yesterday my mother-in-law called and requested a chemo cap for someone she knows.  She’d seen the furry black one I’d knit for my cousin, and asked if I could fit in one more before the baby comes.  She requested a gray color so it would look kind of like real hair as the recipient is in her late 60s I believe.  One of my car’s coil springs broke somehow over the weekend so thanks to a lift from my cousin Robyn I picked up the yarn for it this morning and I’m hoping to get the hat done today so I can a) get back to the cardigan, and b) give it to my mother-in-law when I see her on New Year’s Day.