Finally!

This past year has been the Year of the Sock. This pile of socks represents my year. Almost one full pair of socks per month ...
Did I learn anything from this endeavour? I certainly did. Knitting a pair of fancy socks every month, along with the myriad other projects that I knit was not nearly as easy as I had thought it would be. In fact, it was downright difficult. I'm not certain, but I think that the number of months that I actually finished on time was far fewer than the months I didn't. I did, ultimately, knit a pair of socks for every month -- but only if you count the plain striped socks for December. While not originally planned, these are the pair that saved my claim of "a pair for every month!"

Well, that and the fact that I finished the November socks on Christmas morning. Yes, my youngest son did, in fact, receive a pair of socks still on the needles. Everyone else? Well, the claim is that a picture says a thousand words.
Beginning with the 1:00 position and moving clockwise, you see my daughter-in-law with some lovely Arequipa socks, my step-daughter with hand-dyed Briggs & Little, my daughter with the fair-isle Naturally Loyal socks, myself with the Dream in Colour sparkly yarn, youngest son with the Colinette Jitterbug November socks, eldest son with the Misti International Alpaca sock yarn, and ... well, there's poor Doug with a ball of yarn.

Yes, even with knitting a pair of socks every month in 2011, I ended up short one pair of socks for the gift-giving. Now, I do have a bunch of socks for the ladies in the family for 2012 ... it just turned out that I was short on socks for the men in my life. I have since made great strides toward rectifying this oversight as I'm on the toe shaping for sock #2 of his pair.

And Doug definitely deserves a pair of socks after he got me the fabulous Addi Click needles for Christmas.

I did, however, give him a very awesome gift too:
A KitchenAid professional model stand mixer. Doug has been wanting a new stand mixer for ages, especially since last Christmas his then-current mixer lost a part. Still worked, but was no longer a "start and walk away" model. He'd been wanting and wishing for a new mixer all year, and I decided that he deserved a new mixer. Does he look happy?

In fact, he was so thrilled with the mixer that he immediately hauled it out to the daughter-in-law's kitchen and the two of them mixed up a batch of cinnamon rolls.

Hope everyone else had a delightful Christmas and New Year.