I have not heard from my secret pal in a little while, so I do not know who I owe all of my thank-yous to-- I hope she reveals soonly so I can properly thank her for her generosity! I just sent off an e-card to my pal to let her know who I was-- she has a package arriving shortly, too. I was pal to Adelle of Girl is Crafty. Check out the Cozy she's knitting-- I have it on my planned projects list. She's going to be knitting Rogue, too, which is also on my list! Perhaps I'll start it after the Christmas knitting is complete.
I am in the home-stretch as far as Christmas knitting goes. I'm almost into the decreases on a hat for my brother and then I have 2 hats to knit for Jason and I'll be finished. Saturday, I cast on and knit MIL's scarf-- the Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It's blocking right now. If you're planning on knitting this scarf, check out Jannette's Rare Yarns on Ebay. She has the Rowan Kidsilk Haze for $9 with free shipping (even from the UK to US!). A super-good deal, plus you can get 2 scarves out of 1 skein according to the pattern. I used midnight-- a very deep blue/black, but it did bleed on my hands a tad.
Even though I'm sick, we did venture out for our Christmas tree yesterday. We went to a little mom-and-pop tree farm and cut our own. Cheaper than most of the other tree farms around us-- $40 instead of the usual $70, plus it was much less yuppie. It's currently up in the living room, but we haven't decorated it yet. It was the only weekend we could do it as Jason is going to be out of town this coming weekend-- he's going to Indianapolis for a business trip, and I felt the weekend after would be too late. I even mustered up enough motivation to drag all the Christmas boxes upstairs, and wrap 2 gifts which are already under the tree.
And of course, I must mention Knitty. The new Knitty is up if you haven't already read it somewhere else. I'm undecided on this issue. I sort of fancy Tempting but I really dislike the huge satin ribbon. 'Course, I could sub something else for it like i-cord or something, but then again, ribbing always hurts my hands after a while, too. Mariah is nice, but I'm planning a Rogue, and they're kind of similar, to I know Mariah would be put on the back-burner. Bob and Weave is pretty, but I don't think I'd ever buy the yarn. I don't think it's very "me." I do, however, like the Kureyon Cozy, though I'd probably sub another yarn, and I need a larger teapot for it to work. The knitted womb? Just plain SCAREY.