A Present To Myself

Back to normal today after yesterday's visitors. My brother and sister in law called with a present of track suit bottoms and my son called with my card. He had already given me my present of a Freeview box when I bought my new TV so it was lovely to see him and chat to him for a while. Today my present to myself arrived. I had to order some books as part of Christmas presents for my family and as I had a voucher to spend at Amazon I slipped in a crochet book for myself. I had seen a few of the designs from it on Ravelry and thought that I might like it. It is the Crochet Closet by Lisa Gentry and when the light is better tomorrow I will let you see some of the designs. The books didn't get delivered until 5pm and it was a bit dark to take photos successfully so I just quickly snapped the front cover. I will have a good browse in the book after dinner.

The baby hoodies are now both finished. I just have to sew the smaller one up, block it out and sew buttons on both of the jackets. I will have to knit a swatch, measure it and then put it in the washer to make sure that the jackets won't shrink if Louise machine washes them. As I used wool that was given to me without labels I am not sure what it's exact content is. It feels quite woolly so I need to know if it will shrink if she puts them in the washer.

I think after that I will start on one of the aran hats that I am making for my nephews in law for Christmas. My new crochet patterns are calling to me but the elves in the cellar that Ailsa seems to think that I have are busy helping Santa this year and so I will have to do all of my own knitting so I am afraid there is no time to get distracted by some crochet unless it is for Christmas present washcloths.

I had a really good birthday yesterday. Birthdays are more special to me than Christmas is especially since I have grown older. It is the one day that people get in touch and wish you Happy Birthday. Those text messages,cards, Facebook messages, e mails and comments on my blog mean far more to me than people buying me presents. I have never really been a materialistic kind of girl wanting expensive presents etc. I am just chuffed when people remember that it's my birthday. Christmas I have to share with everyone else but my Birthday is mine all mine.

Time for a bit of dinner now and then back to the knitting treadmill. I am hoping that there is something interesting on the TV to hold my attention whilst I cast on the hat. I can knit far more when I am enthralled by a TV programme and those are increasingly hard to find these days. By the time I have ruled out the repeats, the stupid banal reality, quiz and cookery programmes my TV viewing is rather limited. If I am ever reduced to watching daytime programmes such as Jeremy Kyle then please shoot me!

My neighbour, Julie, popped in with a box of Milk Tray tonight so guess who will be pigging out tonight. Knitting and Chocolate what could be better? Crochet and Chocolate of course!