Meathead Unto Others.

I hate and I love the holiday season. It's a bit cliched, I know, but sincere. There's always stress involved, especially when one factors in shopping for one's spouse's eight siblings, one's own five siblings, their significant others, and all of the various offspring, including one's own--oh yeah, and parents too. It's enough to make me daydream of the BuyNothingChristmas Mennonite movement to give no gifts except those such as a promise to take someone out for a cup of coffee and conversation, or to give a back rub (these are slightly less puritanical Mennonites). Consequently, I have sworn off holiday gift knitting this year, for my own sanity. But I am really excited about Margene and Carole's Knit Unto Others, for which I already have the yarn and a pattern all lined up. The soft, bulky tomato-colored yarn comes from the Hot Lava cardigan that I made a few years ago and frogged over the weekend. (Shrugs and boleros are out of fashion, yo, hot as they once were.) The pattern is Meathead, from Larissa over at Stitchmarker. She's got a KAL going and will include photos of some of the participants' hats in her new book.

This feels like kicking off the season right. I'll be knitting the hats while flying to and from Nags Head, North Carolina for Thanksgiving. The Neefer's family rented a huge beach house on the outer banks so the whole family could get together for the first time since our own wedding eight years ago. There are cousins my kids have never met, and even though it will be chilly, I'm excited to be on the beach again. I've never dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean (I take that back--I did it on the European side, but still), and maybe I'll even get to knit while sitting on the beach, bundled up under the November sun. And we're all praying that there are no more tornadoes. Or hurricanes. Chances seem good.