'twas the day after Christmas . . .

Sigh. I can already feel myself sinking into my post-holiday depression. It won't reach its peak until early January, but the first twinges are already surfacing. The holidays are over. :o( Christmas is my favorite time of year; and, frankly, there's no part of the year I can stand less than January - March. It's cold, it's dark, there are no fun holidays (not a big V-Day fan), and many months remain until baseball season starts. At least this year hubby and I have planned a trip to COSTA RICA in February--hopefully that will help stave off these winter blues.
OK, enough whining. I know you're all waiting with bated breath to learn the fate of Cobblestone. Well, wait no longer. Ta da!!!!




Yes, I finished it in time--although just barely. It was blocking on Christmas Eve and, sadly, not dry in time to wrap and put under the tree. :o( But hubby did wear it on Christmas Day, and I got lots of compliments (which I'll chose to believe were sincere and not just polite). It has its flaws. First, the sleeves are a bit long for him, and the neck became a bit stretched out after wearing it all day. My short rows, frankly, don't look great--I can spot the little holes easily, though I doubt a non-knitter could point them out. I also wound up with large holes on the sides of the sleeves after I grafted the stitches together under the arms, but I think I covered them up fairly well. Overall, I dub it a success, especially for my first sweater. (p.s. Hubby does not have Elvis hair, that's just a weird shadow over his head.)
Sadly, Pop Pop's socks did not make it to Christmas. In adapting the pattern for knitting on DPNs, I made an unspeakably stupid mistake and placed the decreases in the wrong spot. So sock #1 needs to be frogged back to the gusset, and I simply didn't have the time or the energy to do that before Christmas. Maybe he'll get Easter socks.
It's hard to believe that this time last year, I couldn't knit at all. I had just received my almost totally useless "learn-to-knit" kit and was occupied with tangling up a ball of pink novelty yarn. One important knitting lesson I've learned over the last few months is to plan ahead. I didn't get all the knitting done that I hoped to for Christmas, and I spent a lot of hours in the run up to the big day knitting feverishly and missing out on holiday fun. So this year I hope to do one project per month for Christmas 2008.
For now, though, with the holidays over and no major gift giving events coming up, I want to actually knit something for myself. Crazy idea! I want to do a cardigan, but I'm having a hard time deciding which one. I love the Rowena Cardigan from Knit 2 Together, but it looks pretty complicated, as does the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. Maybe the famous Tilted Duster? Please help me out! Vote for one of these, or suggest a cardigan for me!