Leisure Knitting and Other Holiday Activities

The first thing I put on the needles after Christmas was a pair of socks for Fabulous Husband. There is nothing like plain stockinette to soothe the mind and the hands. And yet, despite the fact that these are knee-high dress socks and I have told myself I am On Vacation, the extra turn of speed I picked up over the past year just won't shut itself off. I can knit these as slowly as I like, but my hands are not getting the message and keep acting like they're on a deadline. I'm already halfway through the second one.

The other thing I finally have the time to work on is the Autumn Cardigan that was supposed to be my mother's birthday present in 2009. (Sorry, Mom! I love you, Mom!) It's complicated enough to require my complete attention, but since I don't have to write the pattern as I'm going, this too counts as being On Vacation.

I think I must last have worked on this when Z was still quite small, and not napping for longer than half an hour at a time; in my first sitting the other day I flew through twenty rounds of sleeve, whereas I can see by my highlighter marks on the chart that a year ago I could only get through two rounds at a time. This looks like it'll be finished before the month is out, and then what is a knitter to do?

(Well, keep designing, for one thing--but I'll save the details of that for another post.) This is what I really want to show you. I'll just let it speak for itself.

Guess what I got for Christmas?