Whirlwind

Wow, I have been busy! The Christmas rush is upon me, and I am not ready. I'm leaving to go home on Thursday, and I'll be in PA for 9 days, which will be great (aside from the lack of high-speed internet). I am kind of sort of almost done with the Christmas knitting. By that I mean that all of it is done aside from the second one of these, my grandmother's Embossed Leaves socks. It took me longer than was strictly necessary to knit the first one, so I'm more than a bit concerned about finishing the second one by Monday. I am done with the rest of the Christmas knitting. Well, I think I am. I'm thinking about making someone else a pair of felted clogs, which of course I don't have the yarn for, but we'll see. I might go get some yarn for those tomorrow - I know they could be done in time and would be appreciated. They would make for good plane knitting, which there will be a lot of, since I have a long flight and a long layover at O'Hare. Jennifer is setting me up with a quart-sized Ziploc bag (thank you very much!) so I can bring my lipgloss and hand lotion on the plane (tell me how ridiculous this is. No, don't, I don't want to get into it again). I'm thinking about the plane knitting, and I'll try to figure it out and post about it and whatever other knitting I intend to take home to work on to keep you all occupied when I don't post for 9 days.
Dave got to choose one of his gifts to open a day early, and he chose the box containing these:

Wasn't it so sweet of me to knit him a ridiculous hat? Actually I made two!
Man, my eyebrows look unruly. And I wonder what my mother is going to think of my goth trendy black nail polish. Anyway, you probably guessed this, but these aren't hats, they are actually unfelted felted slippers. I was going to felt then pregifting, but decided that it would be way more fun to see Dave's expression when he unwrapped them and tried to figure out what they were. And it was worth it. For anyone who is curious, I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for these (and the other pair I made, which are yet to be gifted), and will post a full project report on them after we felt them.

Right, I'm off. It's late, but I need to make some serious headway into the second sock for my grandmother if I have any hope of finishing! I'm knitting them on the super sharp/pointy metal Knit Picks DPNs, but I'm thinking about moving them to wooden needles for my flight. Even though you are allowed to bring knitting needles, even metal, these babies are sharp and do look a bit dangerous, so I don't want to take any chances. I can use the wooden ones and check the metal and switch when I get home. I can't see my gauge doing anything dramatic during the transition. I think I started the first sock on wood needles and switched without incident so I am not concerned. I am annoyed I can't bring my Nalgene on the plane. Eh.