Finished and Unfinished Objects

As you may have noticed, my busy season has begun. The shop was very busy this last week, especially since it had been a bit slow earlier this month. Stinkin’ global warming.
Since Christmas approaches, there seem to be a few more finished objects appearing here at Chez Full Service. The blue Trekking socks are done, as is my venture into the use of size 00 needles. The socks are nice and tight and will probably wear better than any I’ve made so far but 00’s are just too small. I actually have to look at my knitting more often because the stitches are so small they are hard to feel! We can’t be having that! There’s also the fact that these socks for a women’s size 8 took me over a month to make and the men’s size 12’s on #1 needles are going to take me just over a week. Hmmm.
Other FO’s are Wanda’s first sweater. I made it too big and am having to use an elastic band to hold it up in the back. Otherwise, she just walks right out of it. I will work more on the fit on the next sweater. There may be cables involved. So funny that my dog needs clothes!
The unfinished objects are many as well. There are the size 12 socks; another pair of tabi socks for a friend who likes to wear flipflops in the house, a sweater for a customer that WILL BE FINISHED TODAY, my friend Jessica’s sweater, a sweater for me, a number of socks that I started just because I felt like it, and the start of a hat for my friend Kathy. This hat is a bit of an experiment. She wanted a hat that shaded from dark to light so I knitted a big swatch with the yarn, dyed it dark to light and now I’m going to unravel it to knit the actual hat. We’ll see how it goes!
There are a number of other projects that only exist in my head so far. The nieces need socks as do several other friends of mine, my cousin’s wedding afghan remains just a bag of yarn, and the dog needs more sweaters. Does something count as a UFO if you haven’t even cast it on yet? I’m not sure.
Oh, and don’t forget the Mitten Tree at the shop. Patience and I put it up on Friday. We will be collecting hats, mittens, scarves, etc for the Somerville Family Network until just after Christmas.My plan for getting all this knitting done? Well, since I am sadly behind on listening to Guido’s podcasts, the plan is to download them and listen to them until I am either caught up or run out of knitting that needs to be done. Which do you think will come first? I’ll keep you posted.