I was a knitting fiend

Whew! I felt like December flew by. It was also the first Christmas in a while where I was "in the spirit." I chalk it up to my cancer trial this year and moving to a new home which has better ju-ju than our old one. There was much to be grateful for this season. Tonight we've been invited to celebrate the new year with my son's best friend's parents, who've happened to turn into good friends of ours. The father is German and loves good beer, so I'm hoping some kind of beer tasting is in the cards. ;-)

I didn't come anywhere near knitting the amount of stuff I wanted to for the month: O's teachers were left in the cold, as was my own mother, who cheerfully gave me permission to put her gift at the end of the queue. Aw, moms! (All this knitting reminds me of the Germaine Greer piece in The Guardian from a few years back about the hell of receiving handcrafted gifts -- I found it hilarious, but many took great offense with it.) Here's what I managed to foist upon my friends and family this year:

O's sweater, which I blogged about here.

Three owl hats, one for O, two for his classmates

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A hurricane hat, meant for a teacher, but too small even for my son.

A simple knit hat to use up the leftover Malabrigo Rios from O's fingerless mitts.

And a little something for me -- Anne Hanson's Fartlek hat pattern, knit out of Zara Extra Fine Merino I found on sale for $1/per ball at Hub Mills in Billerica. Not only was the hat cheap, it was fun to knit and it's incredibly warm. Score!

I won't bore you with the other stuff I knit this month, including a test knit of felted mittens for myself. The loden-colored felted hands actually turned out wonderfully, but the knit cuffs of seafoam green baby acrylic? Ewww. All I can say, the color combo looked good under bad lighting. I'll still be wearing them; no one will see the cuffs tucked up into my new winter jacket, a gift from my mother.

Anyway, I hope you've all had a wonderful year and are looking forward to an even better 2012. First up on my plate in the new year is to see The Iron Lady. I also want to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. And while I loathed the book (see here; I still kick myself for wasting even an hour on this execrable piece of "literature"), I liked the Swedish movie adaptation very much and Daniel Craig in the English version? Mmmm.