I give it a week til he loses one

The feeling of peace and calm I have around the upcoming holidays continues unabated.  I keep waiting for the moment when I look how much time is left, toss it together with what’s left to do and have the world explode into a white flash of anxiety, but so far, not so much as a cramp.  Perhaps it’s that I’ve already got so much done (thank you, spreadsheet of festive power) or maybe it’s all the knitting I did all year long, now ready to be wrapped up and tucked under the tree… or maybe it’s that last night, I finished the Advent tree, and delivered it to the lucky recipient – right in time for the first ornament to be hung this morning.

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Done. 24 tiny things all woollen, all charming, all tailored to be of interest to the wee guy they’re for – and that guy? Luis, of course.

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I know he’s a little small to be really, really delighted with a gift – I mean, he’s only two and 3/4, but if I wanted to make something I thought he would remember having at every Christmas of his life, this was probably the last year to deliver, and he was more charmed by it that I’d ever hoped.  He took out all the little things, exclaimed over what they all were (“CAMION PAPA! CAMION!” –  Perfect validation for the Auntie who thought there should absolutely be a truck ornament) and tried hanging them on the little buttons.

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He then promptly took off eight, snatched them tight in his wee fat hands, and threw them behind the chesterfield, prompting parents to scramble on the floor, and then hang the thing higher. (He also put one or two of them in his pants. It’s a current strategy for stashing his belongings when he has no pockets.)

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I’m so glad he liked it, and almost as good, I think Katie and Carlos liked it too, and I am so stinking happy not to be knitting anymore tiny things that I can just about drop dead of joy. Or exhaustion, or something. I love how it turned out. It’s just like I imagined it, and we all know how seldom that happens with a project.  I’m going to show you all the ornaments, with links, one day at a time. (You know, if you wanted to knit one a day…)  So…

What’s Lou hanging today?

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The star.  I’d originally thought the star would go last, but upon reflection, I thought it should be first. Something else was better last, and truthfully, it’s what I put on my tree first, so why not.  The star came from this pattern, and is knit out of a scrap of fingering weight yellow wool, on 2mm needles. (Most of the patterns I used, I had to downsize so they would fit.  Most of the time I did this by using smaller yarns and needles.

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With this project done, I’m off to consult the spreadsheet, and see what’s left to be done, knitting wise.  I’m sure counting that up will do a lot for my sense of peace. How bad can it be?