And A Pair of Slippers for My Hubby

You know what they say; if you do something three times, it must be a tradition. Since, leading up to Christmas, I’m knitting a lot of stuff that is supposed to be a surprise to people who at least might read this blog, Mom & I spend the twelve days of Christmas doing the Big Reveal. The fun part, of course, is finding a way to shoehorn all our gifts into themes based on the numbers 1-12. Here’s my first attempt.

Jared and I have the one-gift rule when it comes to Christmas. We each get each other one thing, both to discourage materialism and to avoid temptation to spend more than our mostly theoretical income allows. That is, we buy each other one gift, and we knit each other one gift. It’s a measure of the growing maturity in our relationship that we feel like we can put in orders. Jared’s order? Slippers.

Felted slippers, to be precise, always hilariously huge before felting. I think a couple folks I was around when I was knitting these thought my husband might have elephant feet, like these poor afflicted women. More or less, Jared took one look at the slippers I made Fjord last spring, and said something like “Gee, I want some.” Me being forgetful, and Jared being intelligent, he was sure to make this explicit as his Christmas order some time in September.

The persistent are often rewarded.

The pattern, once again, is Fiber Trends’ Felted Clogs. It’s engaging, if very annoying on the sole with the weird short rows and the demand for constant counting. The yarn, once again, was Galway by Plymouth, a perfectly unobjectionable and affordable 100% wool that came in a blue I thought Jared would like.

I’m very pleased with them, and even more pleased with how pleased Jared seems to be. They’re very him: simple and practical, even straightforward, but classy. It’s some sort of testament to my idea of his style that I think he makes them look elegant. These pictures amuse me… somehow the felted fabric makes the picture look blurry even though Jared’s socks (and my Awesome New Boots) demonstrate that the focus is working.

How was your Christmas day? We had a blast casually ripping through presents, sharing handknits and swapping yarn. It’s been a hard year at the Jennings’ household, so there were more than a few tears. But they were happy tears, perhaps a bit cathartic. I think we were able to celebrate the incarnation by living it a bit for each other.