It's Summer

And I'm working on my Christmas knitting again.

After finally, reluctantly, coming to the conclusion that doubleknit, wool, mittens were really not an appropriate gift for family members living in Southern Arizona, and probably not for anyone south of the Mason-Dixon line (except me -- I get cold in the winter), I've started brainstorming ideas for knitted Christmas/Solstice/December presents again. Plus, I've got a few more birthdays coming up in the meantime.

As part of the process, I've been looking at recent issues of magazines, taking ideas where ever I can find them. There are an awful lot of sweater patterns out there. Scads and scads of them. Far more than I'd ever even consider knitting. Being in gift-knitting mode, I'm thinking about smaller items, probably no larger than a hat or purse, projects that won't take months of my "spare" time, since I just don't have that much time available. I've got pages of ideas, some practical, some not, some intriguing, some not. Then I filter based on the intended recipients, the availability of yarn (I'm trying to use up stash, if possible), the size/complexity of the project, and just how interested I am in knitting it up. A few things are beginning to fall out. Since these are going to be gifts, I'm not going into any details here. Not now at least.

New developments: I've discovered that I can knit with cotton without hurting my hands, if I knit lace. Apparently the larger gauge and open texture doesn't put the strain on my hands that knitting fairly tightly knit cotton dishcloths does. With the latter, I could knit only three or four rows before having to switch to another project. I can do a lot more with knitted cotton lace. I'm actually kind of excited by this, since there are projects that actually do better in cotton -- like open-work shopping/tote bags. The kind of bag where you want the stability that cotton provides, as well as the openness of lace. I'll probably be doing more of this kind of knitting in the future.