Oh, lawsy! It's been almost a whole week since I last posted!

What can I say, I got into slacker mode and couldn't hardly get myself out. I mean, I've done some knitting -- Christmas knitting, no less -- but that's about all. I've got a cute story to tell you, a brief description of the knitting I've done (no pictures; I'm not entirely sure if my family reads this blog or not -- they know it exists, I know that) and then I'm going to watch Castle with Yoda. He hardly gets to spend any time with me, I'm such a neglectful momma.

I told the Nieceling that she was getting a hand-knitted Christmas this year, owing to my extreme poverty. I even told her she got to design it herself. She took it all in her stride. She's ultimately knitworthy because, even though she's a whole grown up teenager, she still wears her Phoenix Tears scarf from the Harry Potter Knits book that I made her for her 12th birthday. To school and everything. That's enough to make her knitworthy in my book.

I then went and told The Phew he was getting handmade Christmas and expected far less enthusiasm than I'd even wrung from the uber-cool Nieceling. He's just barely a teenager, and a boy to boot, so I was thinking he'd be polite but disappointed. I mean, his momma raised him right, so he'd be good about it -- he wasn't going to spit on it or anything -- but I was totally surprised when he bounced up on his toes and said, "Really?" And then promptly asked for a hat.

Now, I'm glad he's excited to be getting a hat (which is, thankfully, done), and I'm pleased to knit for him. It's just...hats. I hate knitting hats. There's either all those fiddly double points or a fiddly circular needle or two. They never seem to be as easy for me to knit as they are for everyone else. But for The Phew who, even if his reaction was faked, went to all that effort to make me feel a bit better about the knitting for Christmas thing, I have designed and knitted a hat to his specifications. Since he wanted a chullo style hat (no bobbles, please) I made him a chullo in his school colors and then put the project up on my Ravelry project page as "The Phew'llo". In his honor, of course. You'll have to look it up if you have Ravelry access or wait until after the holidays for a picture. I'm not sure, as noted, if they ever check this blog.

And they're box-shakers*, the lot of them. He'd come online just to see his hat if he knew the pictures were posted.

*You know, those impatient people who sit under the Christmas Tree and shake all their gifts to try and figure out what they are. Thank God they started tying Barbie up like a bondage enthusiast before Nieceling got old enough to shake her boxes or she'd never have had a surprise gift at the holidays!