Gearing up for Christmas

Yes. It is not even September yet, but I feel the overwhelming urge to start my Christmas knitting. I am not doing much. I only have about 4 projects planned this year and one of them is already halfway done (though it will take the longest). I plan on knitting a cowl for my friend Lisa, a pair of socks for the boy, a little pair for my niece Bianca and finally I plan to finish a blanket I started for my mother 3 years ago (as suprise).

The blanket will be the most challenging. When the Knitting Guru first got me back into knitting my senior year in college, she showed me how to make a simple face cloth to practice doing increases and decreases. Well I got it in my head that these were so easy and quick that I should make a bunch of them, sew them together and make a patch work blanket!

Well here is the blanket 3 years later....

It is actually very pretty, tightly knit and extremely warm....but it takes forever!! I need 49 squares and as of yesterday I only had 26 ( I have three done that aren't sewn on yet.) Did I also mention that it is also knit in yucky acrylic yarn??? I can't stand the stuff! I didn't mind it back then because I was kinda new at it and it was super cheap for a starving broke college student. But I suppose I will need to suffer through it. It is for my mommy after all =)