Earl Grey

I am half way though my Christmas knitting for this year, and I am starting to feel myself lag a little. I think there are a few reasons that my excitement is petering. First, I really like knitting for myself. I haven't done much knitting for me, and Francis was empowering. Beyond just creating something, I created something that is useful, stylish, beautiful, and it fits me perfectly. Nothing ever fits me perfectly, so now I am obsessed with wanting to knit more things for myself. To top that off, I don't have a pair of hand knit socks. Secondly, I am knitting socks for Christmas. No matter how simple the pattern is, they are still made on toothpick sized needles out of fingering weight yarn. It is not nearly as soothing as worsted weight (which I don't have to pay nearly as much attention to because I can feel what is going on a lot easier).

In addition to all of that, I think the biggest reason is that I am just not as confident about this gift as I am the others. My current project is a pair of Earl Grey socks for my brother in law. I don't know my brother in law as well as I do my other in laws. We just haven't spent as much time together. I gather that he has very fine taste, and it is obvious that he has a better fashion sense than me so it is hard to be confident in what I am making him. I went with some simple socks that small cable pattern along each side in a simple gray color. The yarn is soft and so far, the fabric is really nice, but my hubby can't give me any assurances that he'll like them.

To be honest, it is not the pattern or the yarn that I'm worried about. It is the concept of hand knit socks. I think that if he is going to like hand knit socks, he'll like these. So, I guess I'm worried that he won't like receiving hand knit socks, and he's not going to be able to return them to the store. I'm probably just being silly. His mother is big into crafts and so I have every reason to believe that he time and effort that go into handmade items. No matter how it turns out, that lack of confidence does take away a bit of the excitement of knitting for someone else.