It was gonna be a photo issue...

But the damned thing would only let me upload one photo, so it's gonna be a lotta fiber instead.




First, a picture of Ladybug in her Paton's self-striping yarn hat with a bright blue flower. Yes. I am the only person in North America who doesn't think these colors are too loud.

But that brings me to what I did for Christmas--or rather, birthdays.

You see, we used to gather to celebrate everybody's birthday in my mom's family, and then grandma and grandpa got sick and we adults got so old that birthdays weren't all that exciting and we sort of stopped. But that didnt' stop me from thinking about my Aunts and Uncle (and their S.O.'s) and so, starting in June, I've been making stuff--just random stuff, thinking about their birthdays. What I ended up with was the following:

*two pairs of socks (including the chicken toes pattern--which, alas, I have no completed photos of. Not that it would matter. Fucking Blogger.)
*three ladies scarves--the Noro Sportweight was my favorite, (simple feather and fan) but the Tonalita crocheted has to be my favorite for instant gratification. It's a LYS staple--12 dc across, with chain 10 loops at every end. The Tonalita is this really decadent self striping yarn...prrrrrrrrr..... Also included was that fluffy color block one that I managed to post not too long ago--remember, it was draped on Chicken?
*two gentleman's watchcaps--one of which was done in leftovers from Big T's camoflauge socks. He liked that cap so much he put in a request. I'm gonna see what I can do!
*And a pair of Dashing handwarmers made in this really awesome tweedy warm wool whose name I forgot.
*Oh yeah...and two men's T-shirts, because I needed ten gifts and I only had eight.

So I gathered aunts, uncle and so's and had them do a white elephant thinger--it was sort of fun! It would have been more fun, but my aunt barb was a bit put off ecause she's sort of a stickler for a schedule (for good reason this year--her mom fell down the stairs and ended up in the hospital the day before, and she was planning to return to the hospital to visit after dinner) but once I made it clear that she got to pick a gift for her wonderful mum, because being hurt on Christmas Eve trumped my flaky aunt carol who just didn't show up, auntie barb perked right up. That, and she got to pick a T-shirt for her son with the Beatles on it. I mean--pretty much, she won all around.

Anyway, it was the wierd relative with a yarn fetish, doing something obscure and strange, but all in all, I felt pretty good about it. And I was rewarded for my pains by a GORGEOUS yarn bag and a gift certificate to my LYS. (Barb got me for the gift exchange this year--she really rocks:-) It was pretty funny, because when I visited my LYS proprietor today, she said, "Yes--when your aunt told me it was for you, I thought 'I could have recommended needles and yarn and so many things. But the gift certificate will cover all of that, so it was okay!"

Anyway--there's my fiber content. Really, I think you all would have preferred pictures of the kids.