I've done a lot of knitting this Christmas. I'd been on a bit of a hiatus, but the bug bit back with a vengeance, it seems. I go through these creative spurts occasionally, obsessively working. I hope it doesn't go away. I'm having fun.

So I finished with the Christmas knitting, officially, on Sunday (but not the finishing, I need to pay attention not to lose that part entirely, it's so much less...fun). It's been ages since I've made anything for myself. When I started knitting, a few years back, I started leaving myself a project under the tree, new yarn, maybe new pattern to gift to myself in the event of the eventual post-present and food orgy letdown. When we were in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, I went to this amazing yarn store and bought myself some Manos (first time ever) and thought it would pair nicely with this pattern, and there you go, "Happy Christmas to me." I'm looking forward to it.

When my mom was here we went to my local yarn store (Closing this spring, to my...well I have mixed feelings, but that's a story for another day.), and I bought a lovely Berroco red to make a scarf and she went a little crazy, buying sock yarn for herself, a friend, and yarn for a vest. All for me to knit, of course. That evening I finished up the Christmas knitting and promptly cast on for a red scarf for myself. I'd spent some time on Ravelry looking for appealing patterns, and I knew pretty much what I wanted. But it was all fiddly, and I ripped it out and started over. And again. And then I tried different needles. And I ripped it out again, and again. I'm not kidding.

It will sound totally dorky to say that I try to listen to my knitting. If I'm having to rip it out, maybe the needles are wrong, or the yarn won't work for the pattern. Or maybe I should be knitting something else entirely. This is a long way of saying that some part of my mind thinks I shouldn't do any knitting for myself until Christmas.

So last night I gave up the ghost and cast on a Monkey. It's the yarn for my mom's friend, and man I love this pattern. They had a funny little thing, my mom and her friend, one of those "I think she's mad at me..." moments, and I don't know, if I'm not going to knit for myself just yet, I may as well knit this, because hey, we all have moments like that.