Finally completed the lion late last night, technically today - during the longest night of the year. Remind me to never again choose a project that first requires me to knit the fabric then sew flat pieces together. I might as well have saved myself some work and bought fabric! Let's not even talk about the full mane of loop stitches.
Abi also received a watch from Nana. She picked it out on Monday, but she seems to have not realized we brought it home - or else forgot.
Robin received a transformers cowl / neck warmer. One side features the autobots logo and the other the decepticons. I actually managed to keep it hidden while duplicate stitching the design. He had already tried on the basic black cowl to make sure it fit.
Covering his head:
I received two knitting patterns from local knit friends - gifted through Ravelry. Now I need to buy more yarn! Oh darn.
And I am pleased to say that I have succesfully met my own expectations this year of not being a Christmas consumerist - at least not in the buy-too-much-stuff way. Of course I did buy some things. My total spending this winter on gifts (from our budget*) for 21 people ** was $180 (that's rounding up a little).
How did I manage that? Easy, I knit many gifts from my yarn stash. So the total isn't actually the VALUE of all the gifts given, just what came out of our winter budget (and a little from end of fall because I'm retroactively counting some of that yarn) and most of that was for Abi. Actually, the most expensive items include yarn*^ and yarn soak.***
I worked very hard to curb my inherited predilection for giving many gifts and shopping (usually all year for gifts). I focused on unique and special items. And I will not succumb to the temptation to compete with the gift Aunty Ericka sent for Abi... we already know exactly what she'll be playing with all day Saturday and Sunday. (Except when we take her tobogganing with our gift.)
*this does not include gifts I bought using money sent by family members to shop on their behalf.
** including Robin and Abi, but not including Robin's family who I did not do the gifts for this year - so you can blame him about your gifts not arriving.
*** Let me emphasize that this is MY frugal spending, despite Robin being the frugal one. Seeing as how he'll be buying his standard gifts online (if he hasn't already) I'm going to estimate he'll spend more than half of what I spent on gifts for 3 people (not including me). HA! HA HA HA! I like to think of this as "yarn karma". That means, when I "need" yarn and buy some delicious alpaca to brighten my day, and Robin tries to complain I will pull out the Xmas budget comparison...
*^ NOT included in this tally is the yarn and fiber and yarn stuff I bought for myself. Much of it was bought in the late fall / early winter. I have retroactively applied money I received (or am still waiting for) to those purchases. That means I've been a very good girl. So far I've managed to spend about $200 on yarny stuff buying from local yarn shops, local dyers, and other artisan yarns via etsy, as well as a drop spindle, a full sweater kit, some needles... and I did mention the fiber to spin right? If you were a fiber fanatic and looked at the stash, you'd be hard-pressed to believe I only spent $200. I've handed it all over to Robin with instructions to put it under the tree for me. That way I'll actually have something under the tree. And, what fiber fanatic doesn't want to fondle new yarns over and over and over? (Did I mention there is alpaca? Oh, and a delightful handspun with silk and alpaca.)
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