Jingle Bells, Knitting's Swell . . .

My Christmas knitting spilleth over. I made some progress this weekend. Well, sort of.

I'm still playing around with the Knitty Fetching wrist warmers pattern, and since I've been messing with the pattern, I think this pair of celery colored ones are going to have to be mine. I really consider it my duty to keep this warm, lovely pair, since I really, couldn't, well, shouldn't give away an experimental pair, now should I?

So what have I done to the nearly perfect pattern? I found the top part too loose around my fingers on the first two pairs I made, so here I reduced the K4, P1 rib over the thumb. I K2Tog on each of the four rounds after you put in the waste yarn for the thumb, and then on the next to last round, I K2Tog in the middle two knit stitches of each K4 portion of the rib. This pulls the opening in enough to make it a little tighter around my fingers. But I have really narrow hands--so maybe it's just me. I also added another cable section to the top portion above the thumbs. Since I had to buy the extra yarn, I thought why not give myself a little more warmth?

I have a couple more pairs to make--the next pair will be in this pumpkin color. I just have to make sure that I don't fall in love with them and decide they need to be called experimental as well. Perhaps its a good thing that I can't make them out of the one skein that the pattern called for. Being the smart knitter that I am, instead of just buying another skein and then having the leftovers, I bought two extra skeins so I knew I could get 2 pairs out of the three skeins.

I also finished the white ruffled scarf, and cast on the next one in the black Lion Cashmere Blend. Instead of a K1P1 rib pattern, I'm going to do a K2P2 rib up the length. I know, I know, I shouldn't live so dangerously, but I like it on the wild side. Okay, this is Christmas knitting, so remember fast and quick is the order of the day--with a side a sarcasm. But the sarcasm is necessary, since I've got 4 scarves, 2 sets of fuzzy socks, 4 sets of wrist warmers to get done--and I'd like to have them knit in the next two weeks. Yes, two weeks.

And then? I'm going to knit for me. I've been watching all the people knitting the Central Park Hoodie, and now it's my turn. I got the yarn in the mail (Yes, I know I'm supposed to be knitting from my stash... but I love this green and I'm just calling it an early Christmas present for myself.) Then I had to hunt down a copy of the Fall issue of Knitscene at Weaving Works, and would like to cast it on, but I have a feeling I won't get it on the needles before January. Anyone else dying to knit one of these?