And so it ends...

Well, my friends, Christmas has officially come to a close in our household.

I, for one, am quite sad. Christmas never really felt like it happened this year. Ah, well. There's always next Christmas to start preparing for.

On Saturday, we had a bunch of of our friends over for what we've officially deemed Frindermas. Rather than us trying to buy something for every single one of our friends (limited income here, people) we decided to do a secret santa exchange with everyone. It ended up being a rousing success.

My darling Vi had me and gave me some fantasy themed (dragons, not dicks, you filthy minded people) paper craft dolls and a really frickin' cool dragon skull trinket box.

Some of my friends bought us gifts, too, though it was unexpected. Bethany bought me a d20 mug, which is so supremely awesome. I don't have pictures of the dolls or the mug because it would require a trip upstairs. And I am much too cozy for that, thank you very much!

I do, however, have pictures of all the glorious yarn that Caitlin, Taylor and Ellie got me.

Those, my friends, would be four skeins of Madeline Tosh.

Plus she brought down the Malabrigo Rios I had her put back for me forever ago.

It's the Jupiter colorway, the same one I used in my mom's cowl. I have plans for this, don't you worry.

Seeing as a bunch of my friends are knitters, we decided to have The Great Destash. Everyone brought out what they no longer wanted and we traded everything out.

I was good and only grabbed these two hanks.

Both are a beautiful chunky weight. The creamy alpaca at the bottom is amazing. I can't stop feeling it up. And Gwen Erin is a dyer and spinner from the area, I believe.

On Sunday, we had our Christmas lunch with my adoptive family. I made Kevin, Sydney, Sheyanne, and John each a quilt, and Renee received one of my pillowcase dolls. They all went over quite well, especially John's. I had planned on making him one for Christmas morning here, but ran out of time. Once he got it, though, he didn't take it off.

I was spoiled rotten once again. Kevin made me a book press and Renee picked me up some awesome new dice for D&D. The deck of cards will also probably be incorporated if my party ever stumbles across a deck of many things.

Sydney and Sheyanne got us an Applebee's gift card and a pair of earrings that Sydney had made. They look like a yarn ball with knitting needles sticking out of them. It's absolutely adorable. They're currently drying because the one needle likes to keep popping out, so I had to glue it.

John, the darling man, got me a new hardcover copy of Sorcerer's Stone. My original is... not quite intact.

I also got to see Kevin's first attempt at a bowl.

Isn't it just gorgeous?! It's finished with beeswax, which gives it such a beautiful glow. He's going to be making yarn bowls soon and I can't even tell you how excited I am about it.

On Monday, Vi and I had a lunch date, followed by a little trip up north to my other home. You see, Vi's caught this horrendous disease. The only known cure involves a couple of needles and some nice merino. Yep, yet ANOTHER one of my friends has joined the ranks. (We're still working on Bethany, but there's hope!)

We sent Vi home with 4 bags of destash yarn the other night, but like yours truly, she had a need for some yarn shop time.

Sadly, my darling Sarah had caught the plague and wasn't there to hang out.

I was going to be good and only get another skein of Rios so I could make matching fingerless gloves for my hat.

Oh! Yeah! My hat! I got that done!

Please excuse my dorky-ass expression. I was trying to take a picture while balancing my new bae (isn't that the term the younglings are using these days?) on my hand.

She's not a new pet, but she recently lost her mate (remember the bird blood thing from last week? yeah...) and has decided that I'm a suitable replacement.

The hat didn't quite come out like I'd envisioned, but I'm happy that I figured out how to do non-spiral decreases.

So, back to my outing. I picked up the Malabrigo that I wanted. It's the same shade, but the colors are quite a bit different from the original.

Then, I ended up seeing this. And I could NOT walk away from it.

Tell me that won't look bloody fantastic on my Dragonscale Shawl?

I also changed my mind about what shawl I wanted to do for Vi for the vow renewal. She's wearing a TARDIS dress, so why wouldn't I make a TARDIS shawl?

So, I picked up some Dream Smooshy in Romeo Blue.

Speaking of the vow renewal, I gave up on trying to take on everything myself. My darling Caitilin has agreed to do two of the shawls for me. And if worse comes to wear, Bethany has agreed to wear a shawl I had previously made for her.

I was also talked into (willingly, I might add) into doing a brooch bouquet. I've already started my hunt for the brooches and I'm quite excited.

I've got a good start on Caitlin's Sonetto shawl for the renewal.

The pattern calls for fingering weight. I'm using a DK, so it should go faster. I have grand ambitions of getting done by the end of January...

You can stop laughing now.