116 Days

Give or take a little.

That's right, starting September first, it will be 116 days until Christmas. And if one has 12 knitted presents to complete (that's right, 12) That means a little less than 10 days per project. And that's not even counting my poor Cloud Bolero I haven't even started.

So here's the scoop.

I went away to San Diego like I mentioned in my last entry, and here's the shocking part, I didn't take ANY knitting! That turned out to be just as well because Comic Con so filled up all my time and attention that I probably would've left my needles in my suitcase anyway.

Then I came back from San Diego and life turned into an endless routine of wake up, go to work, lounge around in PJ's or spend time with JR when not working, rinse and repeat.

But then somewhere in there, things started changing. To give the short, pedestrian version of the story, two good friends from the past came back into my life and have been having a big influence on my life, I started channeling on a regular basis, I went to a certain beach and partook in certain psychadelics and learned an infinite amount about myself and life. And now my daily routine includes knitting as part of my meditation every morning and/or evening.

So now that the "crazies" of life have been tamed a little and I'm actually knitting on a regular basis, I figured it's finally time to get back to working on Christmas presents.

Except now I have 12 presents to make! In all fairness, 2 of the 12 are actually birthday presents, and one is 75% done already, which is good because both birthdays are in November, so I need to have them done before Christmas.

So the revised list of recipients stands as such:
Mom
Dad
JR
Tim
Patty
Lucid
Lianne (She and Lucid are the two friends that recently came back into my life)
Patty's two kids
Natalie

I have all the gifts figured out, I just need to ask Lucid if he still wants the very specific mitts he asked me for like 2 years ago, otherwise I've got a standby pattern for him. Both Patty and Lianne are the Novemeber bithdays, but I have Patty's gift nearly done, and I'm picking up yarn for Lianne's today after work. If I can get both done before September first, then I'll buy myself more time for the Christmas knitting.

And if that wasn't enough, I still want to knit my Cloud Bolero before the weather turns too cold to wear it. As hot as it's been lately, that shouldn't be a problem, but I still want to get on it, because the yarn is starting to call my name across the room to get my attention.

AND THEN, to add even more excitment, I've finally started coming up with ideas for the small Etsy business I've always wanted selling hand knits, or "magic garments" as Judy said I should make. I was pondering what sort of "magic garments" would carry enough appeal that people would actually buy them, and I decided that I'll just make things I would like to own (like I have a design for an alter cloth knocking around my head). And since handknits can be kind of expensive when you total up the cost of materials and labor, I decided that if I can't reasonably price a finished item, then I can sell the pattern instead. I plan to work on coming up with ideas and plans and gauge swatches as a sort of breather activity from all the Christmas knitting, and then hopefully by the new year (or sooner if Christmas knittin goes well) I'll be ready to really launch into business.

You know what, it just occured to me that Lucid and Lianne have a baby. Siddhartha is only 2 (or maybe it's 3) months old, so he'll barely be big enough to use knitted objects, but he's still a person too. Hmm, maybe I'll give him books for his future library, that's a traditional baby gift in our family and it's what Patty's yougest is getting next week for her birthday. Or maybe I can find a really awesome (and easy) blaket pattern. Or something. Maybe I'll just make it easy on myself and give him books.