2009 Coming to an End in 12 Hours

I went to work this morning, in the dark, dark of morning, no rain, dry roads, no snow.  Six hours later it was snowing so hard, it would have been easy to get visual vertigo watching out the front window of the train.  

I'm pretty sure the person who did the visual effects for Star Trek was a Northerner, as watching all the stars when the Enterprise went warp speed is the same as watching the snow come flying at you thru the window of your mode of transportation at the moment.   This was my backyard when I got home today!  Pretty cool, eh?  Yes, pun intended!  lol

I finally caught up on all my Christmas gifts that needed to be crocheted up.  And I always tell myself that I'm going to get them done early in the year so there's no last minute, frantic, stitching going on.  Of course, that never works for me.  It didn't this year either.  So.....the week and a half before Christmas, I found myself with  hats that needed to be made up.  I succeeded.  Barely.  Family Christmas this year was on Sunday, and I was still weaving in the last of the tails when everyone started arriving.  Wheewww!  My hands still hurt from all those stitches!

I put all the hats into a pile and starting with the oldest first, let them pick which coloring they wanted.  I used the same pattern on all of them, my Reversible Strands for Men, but switched up the coloring.  I had four skeins of Caron's Simply Soft, and got eight hats from that.  I still had some leftover from making Jalapeno Sunrise jacket, and got two more hats from that! 

Out of those 10, I needed 6.  The remaining 4 are going to a friend who's son is in the the National Guard Reserves, and most of his unit is being shipped over to Afghanistan shortly.  She's been doing a collection of hats and scarves for each member of his unit, with the first people being shipped over getting first choice.

As this year comes to an end, I am still surprised (and happy about it!) that the Reversible Strands for Men seems to be a popular hit with crocheters on Ravelry, based on the amount of downloads this pattern has generated there alone. 

It's been a quiet year, crochet-wise for me, but still busy.  Hopefully the new year will bring new wisdoms and ideas for me to make new patterns that others will like just as much if not better.

I know there are are least two new things I want to accomplish for 2010, and they both include cables.  Another thing is that I would love to finally get the hang of doing pattern sizing, as quite a few people have expressed their wish to have the pattern for a top I had made.  But...right now I only know how to make things my size.  Or Hubby's size, or Missyboo's size.  I haven't been able to quite get my brain to accept that sizing is mostly a matter of mathematics - # of stitches/rows per inch.  Never one of my strong points.  (sigh)

But here's wishing you all a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to you and yours!

Have a good day!  :D