Um. Oops. Apparently I'm making Rudder a sweater. I was in a non-diligent, holiday mood so I decided to go to the yarn store at lunch to get the yarn for the gloves for my dad. I'd never done that before; it's a little further than I usually like to go. Of the three on my side of town ("town" being a large area comprising the entire Valley of the Sun) this one is my least favorite, but the other two are much further from here. I got the wool for the gloves all right, some Filatura di Crosa 501 (color 1288) plus some size 4 needles because I only had size 5 and they might be too big. (The gloves need to be dense.)
I also got: an extra long Denise needle cable, some GGH wine-colored mohair yarn to make wristwarmers for me because my office is cold aaaand..... nine skeins of Lamb's Pride bulky to make a sweater for Rudder. It would, of course, have been much smarter to say, "Now there's an idea, I think I'll make a sweater for Rudder," and then take him to the store to choose his own colors, but I think he'll like this. It's a denim sort of blue, with one skein of gray to make a stripe across the chest. I plan to make it a top-down raglan, probably plain stockinette, since that much ribbing would take longer and is not really any more exciting to knit. If he's lucky he'll get it by his December 2006 birthday; for this year he'll have to be satisfied with store-bought sweaters.
His birthday is two days before Christmas, so coming up with enough gift ideas is always tricky. Unfortunately when I called his parents to make sure we didn't step on each others' toes (and all buy the same gift), I found out they're busy dealing with some serious health problems of his maternal grandmother's. It's looking like a very good thing that we got to see her this summer, when she was lucid at least part of the time. She's declined very quickly since then, from the sound of it. Her youngest grandchild is in college and the oldest is 40 or so, so it's hard to complain, but this may be a difficult Christmas for my mother-in-law.
Holiday birthdays. Reminds me of our middle daughter, 28th of December. When she was born I told Heather I would give daughter my birthday and take hers. Heather wouldn't go for that, still think it made more sense.
