FO Alerts and Stealth Holidays

So riddle me this: How is it that the stores can start trumpeting Christmas all over the place starting just after Labor Day, and still the holidays can sneak up on you and smack you over the head before you realize what's happened? It happens every year, and it's happened again. By the time this weekend rolls around, people should be whipped into a major-league, frothing-at-the-mouth frenzy to Get Out There and Buy Stuff.

Not that I play that game much at all. Since the advent of online shopping, I haven't had to play chicken in a shopping-mall parking lot with a pack of kamikaze SUVs. My Christmas shopping takes place over a nice, steamy cup of coffee, in the peace and privacy of my home office. No squalling children, no Muzak, no one to try spraying me with perfume that always smells like Black Flag. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

My brother and sister-in-law always put on the full Martha Stewart treatment at their house, since it's easier for them to invite everyone in than it would be to pack the twins, the 180-pound puppy, and all the requisite gear into the car to go someplace. Greg and I have to day-trip to Massachusetts, since it wouldn't be fair to truck the dogs all the way down there and make them sit in the car the whole time. It will be fun enough -- we'll eat well, Greg will play the piano, and my niece and nephew are a riot. I'm happiest about having Friday to recover from it all, though.

More FO Sightings

Those skeins of Andes just refuse to run out! I knitted Jody a felted bag from the stuff, made a hat from the leftovers, finished that, and am now working on a scarf to match the hat. I'm adding a hat of Nashua Handknits' Painted Forest to Jody's knitwear CARE package.

Amazing, the stuff you can find in your stash without really trying. I unearthed a gorgeous pair of mega-skeins of Cherry Tree Hill's loop mohair yarn while looking for something else, and promptly forgot about the something else. The colors are so lovely they make your mouth water -- shades of fall foliage, plus purples. Even though I have some training as a painter, I still consider myself somewhat color-impaired, so it still impresses the heck out of me when a dyer puts colors together and creates something amazing. The mohair is in the process of becoming a simple-but-stunning triangular shawl with really long fringes. These days I don't go too many places where one could wear a long fringed shawl, but I'll make some up.

The felted bag factory goes on and on. I've completed that one in the gold-and-green Andes for Jody and another one in Pine Shadows Lamb's Pride for Libby. Kathy's bag is now on the needles; it's in Charcoal Heather Lamb's Pride. If I can get away without making anyone else any promises, the only two I have left to make are the tote in Cascade 220 and Kureyon for Susannah and one for myself in Tahiti Teal or Amethyst Lamb's Pride.

I promise to post photos after the bags go through the wash cycle and the needlefelting stage. It seems like a lot of time and effort just to make myself some "artist's canvas" to put needlefelted designs on, but that's part of the fun. The needlefelting goes so quickly, though, that it's done by the time you really start getting into it.