alisonknits

All I Want for Christmas...

... is to knit on the Swan Sweater, which is all for me, with no deadline.

My holiday gift knitting has been on hold for the last few days as I've been working on some finishing work that I'd promised to, ahem, *finish* for a student that I was meeting with today. There was a lot more to finish than I'd anticipated, plus I spent a lot of the weekend celebrating the holiday season with various friends and acquaintances.

However, I'm still confidant that I'll finish Augie's sweater and Meredith's poncho in time - especially since I won't see them until after Christmas.

Scott's cashmere scarf is done. I hope he hasn't started reading my blog without telling me. If he has, he won't have much of a surprise on Saturday. As it turns out, I could have finished the scarf earlier, since it grew many inches when I washed it. I decided that since Scott is quite tall and never gets to have long-enough scarves, I'll just leave it the ridiculous length it currently is, but won't weave in the end on the bind off side, and he can decide how long he wants it. I'll unravel if necessary.

I had this absurd idea in my head that I might get around to putting together a submission for next fall's Interweave (deadline for submissions is Dec. 31 or something like that). But that was a very silly idea. Next winter's submissions aren't due until March... that's a much more realistic goal.

Anyway, I've gotten into that place where I'm really sick of knitting on a deadline, which is most of the knitting I've done in the last few months. I struggle with this a lot, particularly in light of my knitting design ambitions. It's actually part of a larger issue in my life where I have this bizarre tendency to professionalize everything I like to do. Even church! But then I whine when the things that I enjoy are no longer fun, because I've made them into these professional commitments. On the other hand, I feel very blessed to be doing work that is meaningful to me. I suppose it's all a matter of balance.

By the way, this post title is a big lie. There are lots of other things I want for Christmas, like an iPod, and stuff on my Amazon wish list that you can see on my sidebar. I'm very selfish and shallow and consumerist that way.

Not So Crazy

Usually I find the holidays season extremely stressful and harried. Despite the holiday knitting ambitions I professed in my last post, I'm oddly not stressed out about it.  Nor am I particularly worried about the fact that I've done almost no shopping yet (even if those annoying Old Navy commercials insist on it being time for "last-minute" gifts).

The holiday knitting is going fine.  Scott's scarf is about 2/3 complete, and I'm almost done with one of Augie's sleeves.  I'm feeling so relaxed about it that I even let myself do a few rows on the Swan Sweater.  And I think it's time for a new photo:

I actually don't have that much shopping to do, since Scott & I are taking it easy on gifts.  I think the scarf I'm knitting him will be the only present I get him, except for some stocking stuffers.  I just ordered a gift for my dad, who is very difficult to shop for, and if I don't get around to knitting my sister a poncho, I have a few other ideas that would be easy to get hold of.  I do have a couple of kids to get presents for, but one patience-trying trip to Toys R Us will take care of that.  On second thought, maybe I can find something online.

My lack of holiday stress may also be because I'm not travelling this year.  It will be nice to have several days off at home, and my dad is going to come down for a few days.  It will be a pleasant way to spend my last Christmas in New York.

I've started thinking more seriously about what I want to do when I get to Boston next year, and have already found one very promising job lead.  It's a huge relief to know that there are possibilities out there in my narrow field.  Most UU churches don't have a staff person responsible for membership, but that seems to be changing.  And it helps that Boston happens to be the UU mecca!

And the holiday madness begins...

Every year around this time, I start getting suddenly ambitious about knitting holiday gifts.  I had already planned on knitting a sweater for my sister's boyfriend, and started it ages ago.  I'm now on the sleeves; no problem there.  A week or two ago I started a scarf for Scott - that's going quickly and is a relatively small project.  This much is easily managable, and I thought that would be all my Christmas knitting for this year.

But then last weekend my sister mentioned that the next time I knit something for her, she'd like a poncho.  So I'm thinking... in October I knitted 3 ponchos in 3 weeks - surely I can do another one in bulky yarn by Christmas.  (Of course, she didn't actually say she wants one for Christmas, and I'm sure she'd be just as pleased to get it in the spring.)

And then I started thinking that I've never knitted anything for my two aunts on my dad's side, so maybe I should knit them scarves this Christmas.

(Of course, I've never knitted anything for my aunt on my mom's side either, but she lives in Florida, so I never know what to knit for her.  Plus I won't be seeing her until January or February at the earliest.)

And yesterday we picked names for the office Secret Santa, and I got Tim, the head maintenance guy.  I have no idea what Tim would like, but hey, who wouldn't want a hand-knit hat, right?

So... yeah... I'm crazy.  It's December 2nd already!

Besides, I still have to finish my Top Secret Design Project this weekend, plus Ivete lent me her copy of Norsk Strikkedesign (thanks Ivete!), so I want to get back to my swan sweater.  (I discovered that I have to rip back an inch because the back and front start being different before the front neck shaping.  I hate when I go too far like that.)

Anyway... stay tuned to see how much holiday knitting actually gets finished by December 25th!

Buzz buzz

I'm busy as a busy these days, in both of my professional lives. (It's exhausting leading this double life!)

In my knitting life, I'm teaching Intermediate Knitting on Mondays and Beginning Knitting on Tuesdays. This double-whammy is kind of killing me, although hopefully now that the two classes are up and running it won't be as much work outside of class. My Beginning class is extremely unwieldy - there are 22 students. For the first two weeks I had help (thanks to At the Green Frog's Allana one week and Mason Dixon Knitting's Kay the second - thanks again, ladies!), so that made it a lot easier teaching the basic stitches. But I think that even though having a couple of teachers in the room brings the student:teacher ratio down to a managable level, just having that many people in the room changes the whole dynamic of the class. I feel bad that these students aren't getting as good an experience as my last class, which was 12. I think I'll talk to the venue about making the cap 16 students instead of the 22. If there's that much demand, perhaps they would add another class if they have space on another night.

Of course, then I would have another night of teaching, which would leave me with hardly any weeknights free and even more exhausted...