is this thing on?

OK, see? Sorry about the whole not-blogging thing. I can blame it on NaKniSweMo, because I was knitting ALL the time, and because it's boring to be like "here's yet another picture of a boring green sweater in progress. Of course, said sweater turned out to be way too big and needed to be frogged and re-knit anyhow. More on that when I finally finish it in a few days.

Then there was Christmas knitting, which I also couldn't blog about, because the recipient, my partner A, might find out. I wasn't having none of that!

What did he receive, you might ask now that Christmas is done and gone?



We welcome our Dalek overlords.

Knit from the extremely well-written and easy to follow Extermaknit pattern.

I made the following changes:
* Made smaller, 3-stitch bobbles
* Did vertical striping in all stockinette, instead of 1x1 rib
* Eliminated extra rows of main body colour between the vertical stripes and the horizontal stripes.
* Added an odd combination of slipped stitches and stranded work to add vertical vent lines to the horizontal stripes
* Used beads instead of bobbles at the top of the head

A full body shot...



At Christmas I also made a pair of handwarmers for my sister-in-law, using the deservedly popular Fetching pattern. You can see a gusseted thumb there: she has really big joints due to childhood arthritis, so I added 12 extra stitches for thumb room. :)



Finally, my Christmas booty. The big surprise was this:



which my parent picked up in Alaska! This will probably become a hat for A, who is cold but doesn't like itchy wooly things.

I also got a Bosworth mini spindle



and some lovely Spunky Eclectic BFL roving



and now I just need to learn to spin. Hrm. (I've heard that these spindles are hard to learn on, but I will persevere. Oh yes.)

I should finish Tangled Yoke very soon, so more then!