Gone Shopping

I've started my Christmas shopping. I went to Glory Bee and got "Another Martini"--only my computer wasn't hooked up and I wasn't about to order from the computer lab, so I had to call and ask for "another martini." Good thing the boss wasn't around (smirk). I ordered that to make for my cousin who has the martini sign up in her kitchen and a collection of vintage cocktail shakers. I thought I had also seen a pattern for a cosmopolitan on the site, but if I saw one at all, it wasn't there. I want that for my sister who has decided to decorate her kitchen with "cocktails." They do have a margarita, but my sister is a SATC fan. The woman at Glory Bee said that I could probably adapt the martini pattern, by stitching the olives with cranberry floss. Now that I think about it, Sissy's moving and I think she's going to be sharing a kitchen. Maybe I should keep thinking.

I spent hours looking at the free knitting patterns on about.com for the pattern I requested last week. I can usually find some good stuff there, but it seems no one is making a knit cardigan for toddlers that has any kind of trim (I want something that goes from the collar down the placket to the sweater bottom). I came pretty close, it just has trim on the collar. Oh, and there is one in Monkeysuits. Maybe my desire for fluff on the placket is just too much. And what is up with knitting book publishers not making pages--the relevant pages--from their books accessible on the amazon site? I don't want a picture of Jill Eaton, I want a picture of the finished projects. Oh, so you think I should get off my butt and go to the bookstore, do you?

I've made my rotations for the next three months, and sad to say, there's not much stitching on it, mostly knitting. I guess I'm knitting because I have a better sense of how long those projects will take. With cross-stitch, I always want to do something complicated or nice and that just takes a long time. Since I'm not much of a knitter, I'm content to knit crappy scarves. Do you hope that people who don't want a crappy scarf will just tell you? (Although this year I am felting bags...)

I've also figured out about how many hours I have left on finishing up the (x-stitch) WIP list. I think it will take me about 230 hours. This is how sick I am, I am thinking about organizing my unstarted patterns by categories (size, season, and how much I want to work on it) and making a new rotation. Okay, I am about 5 months from finishing what I've started, and I'm already making lists of what I'd like to do next. I think I need a clinic.