Christmas Knitting has begun

This year has been a total year of festivities already, my favorite niece was married in Florida in July to her Jeremy.  My favorite nephew was married in October to his Anna.  Both resulted in travel both near and far.  Which has impacted my pocket book.  But Christmas is coming...and gifts must be prepared.  Some will be bought and shipped.  Others will be coming out of my stash.  And after organizing it this weekend, my (at least to me) rather substantial stash made me see plenty of options. Looking at this picture it seems I have more deep dark colors, in greens/blues/purples than lighter pastelly colors.  I have an 3 drawer, 8 cubed unit that holds my yarn and various knitting gadgets.  (and boy do I like gadgets)  This weekend I bought a kitchen scale so I can more easily determine where I am in a project.  (Note to self:  weigh ninja sock one and compare to semi completed ninja sock two and remaining small ball of yarn and see if backup plan needs to be put into action.)

So with bugets impacted by weddings and travel, I started working on one Christmas present already, the Girasole afghan I made for Kyle and his Anna turned out very well and was met with lots of oooohs and aahhhs and my sister strongly "hinted"
i would really like one for Christmas Sharon that she wouldn't mind having one herself.  But I didn't want to make a second one so soon after finishing the first one.  So I pulled up another pattern by Jared Flood called the Hemlock Ring.  He and the Rainey Sisters made this popular a few years ago and the pattern is free on Ravelery.  So I started working on this for MK.  I can't get the color right in the picture, but it is a deep wine color.  I should have it finished around Thanksgiving.  Which then gives me plenty of time to go through my stash and figure out what I can make for both Kyle and Anna.  Knitting for Kristin is much harder, as wool and Florida don't really mix well.  Such is life.