put a fork in me

...'cause I'm done.

First, a roundup of the Year of the Sock, officially "done" except for the uber-socks, which are little more than a half-centimetre, but they'll keep.

Total Socks - 8 pairs. The first, and monumental, were for me, because that's what you do with your trial stuff on which you make all the mistakes. The second, with the weird and pointy toe (okay, so not all the mistakes were just on the first pair), currently residing on the feet of my dad in England. Third made their way to Deep River, Ontario, to their new owner Rach. Fourth, uh...a yarn I didn't like in the ball but knitted up cute, winged their way to Angela's chilly Minnesota toes. The fifth, all in blue, are now in China with school principal Georgina, who doesn't have central heating. Number Six went to Andrew, who can totally pull off the bizarre and ugly colour scheme and who is so far into the cool stratosphere that being linked to from somewhere so mundane as this will damage his rep, well, irreparably. And seven and eight, the cably goodness of the possum/merino toasties, a sort of bridge between socks and slippers, back to England on the parental tootsies.

Total slippers: 9, I'm pretty sure. Most made from the super-bargain yarn I dyed with food colouring. Serena, in New York, received the first pair, followed by a huge green pair for Chris, the best things about which were that they were totally free (from donated yarn) and felted beeyoutifully. Unbelievably, May saw the first pair of the five family Christmas slippers, again for Rach in snowy Ontario. Four more for her family - the too-big kids' ones "rectified" with elastic round the ankles in the end. I used the rest of the green yarn, plus some other motley bits, to make my emergency slippers when we arrived in this land of cold, damp and no heating. The matching his-n-hers greenies prompted the coinage of a new term, "yurty", courtesy of Frances and Andrew. "Yurty" indicating the sort of low-tech, bicycling, Birkenstock-wearing, vegetable-eating, lefty, recycling, pinko, Utne-reading lifestyle that they perceive us to have. Well, all right, that we do have. Jury's out on whether or not this is pejorative. And finally an ultra un-yurty pair, stripy in food-colouring-turquoise and that neon pink acrylic, brought back the 80s and went off to China again.

Also sneaking into the YOTF were the handwarmers, which Frances (of the yurty judgment) has named "warming-over-a-flaming-bin-chic". Then there was the sweater, modelled here by ma belle mere - not me, although we're practically identical and from a not very great distance, this might as well be me.

And there's one Christmas present left - knitting tradition dictates not finishing one present - which again is the bridge to what looks like it's becoming the Year of the Hand. And below, the fiddly thumbs and fingers become...

(unfinished state of course; they don't come with the needle still stuck in the wrist).

I'm also "done" in the sense of "pooped". December has been a lot of extra days at work and extra hours in the extra days. In the bit between Christmas and New Year, "The Staff" get their time off. In the bit after New Year, commonly known as "January", "The Owners" take their time off. "The Manager", pale and mystical guardian of the portals of literature, just keeps on goin'. She's the Energizer bunny of pale and mystical portal-guardians.

And here's 1st January 2008, another portal. Hope unusual and happy adventures await you on the other side.