WIP Insanity

So the office holiday party was last night, and I think we all had a blast. I'm fortunate to work in a great department with great people. The entertainment this year was very cool - the organizers brought in a magician, a palm reader and a caricaturist (sp?). I got an excellent caricature (again, sp?) done of me and when he asked me if I had any hobbies, I told him that I knit. So he drew me knitting away - awesome! I'm going to see if I can't scan it and post it here as my profile pic. :)

I did have a weird moment at the party last night. We had our office auction to benefit the United Way, and the item I donated was a custom-order baby sweater. It sold for, so help me, $55, which is unbelievable, but that wasn't the weird moment. The weird moment was when another co-worker came up to me post-auction and asked if I did boy things, too (my child is a girl, and I brought in a bunch of sample pieces I'd done for her to demonstrate to potential bidders that my knitting didn't suck). When I said yes, he said that he and I should talk, the obvious implication being that he wanted to pay me to do something for his 8-month-old son.

A lot of things about this bothered me. Firstly, I'm not sure I even want to do a paid item. I already have tons of other important projects on the go. He can't really pay me what my time is worth - there's a big difference between donating my knitting for charity and charging what's reasonable for my time. Plus, if I used a commercial pattern (which I would probably want to, since I don't see myself inventing a pattern for this project), I would be violating copyright to take money for it. And his attitude was that of someone who just assumed I would knit for money - which is pretty annoying. He didn't actually ask. So I may have to level with him and tell him that I'm not so keen on the idea. Ugh. This is gonna be awkward.

(Ordinarily I provide knitted gifts for all my co-workers who have babies, but he joined the department and had a baby while I was on my year-long maternity leave, so his son doesn't have one of my handknits.)

United Way auction sweater

Well, as I've already mentioned, the auction was held last night, and the winner was my co-worker Rob, who bid an astounding $55. This makes me feel unbelievably guilty, because I'm ALREADY MAKING SOMETHING FOR HIS UNBORN SON! Which of course I haven't told him about, because it's a surprise, but since I always make baby things for expectant parents in the department, he should have known he didn't have to buy a sweater from me. Oh, well. I guess now he'll have two. :) We'll probably hash out what he wants over the next few weeks.

Catherine Parr sweater for MIL

Sleeves are now 8.5" long. Even got some done on the cab ride home from the office party.

Stornaway sweater for BIL (cream)

Managed to get about 30 stitches done this morning. That's it. Woo.