Triumph!

The three-quarters of a skein of Silky Tweed that I needed to finish off DD1's ballet teacher's gift was FOUND. So I was able to complete it. Here it is blocking, upside-down as I always do so I can sew in the ends:

Here it is all finished, lying flat, with the front showing:

Lying flat with the back showing (I love mattress stitch; I would have knit it in the round, but the only 4.5mm circular I could find was being used for my brother's cardigan, so I had to resort to straights):

Being worn:

Being worn with the back pulled up a bit over my head:

I think she's going to love it. She's a redhead, so the colour will look fabulous on her.

Also found: the tenth ball of yarn I need to have enough for my brother's cardigan. This is the only holiday gift I have left to complete, so, despite the siren call of other projects, I am concentrating exclusively on the cardigan and am forging ahead.

The sleeves are finished:

And I'm making progress on the fronts. Like the sleeves, I'm knitting the fronts at the same time. I did, however, realise that I'm going to have to find a zipper for this thing somewhere.

No wait, I'm wrong - there is one more holiday gift left to finish: DD1's Ruby poncho/skirt. However, all that's left there is the sewing of the last seam and the weaving in of all the ends. Okay, also I need to attach some sort of flat band to the hem to stop it from rolling up. I have no idea how they managed to get the hem in the model garment in the book to not roll up while they were doing the photo shoot, because there just isn't enough garter stitch at the bottom to prevent it.

I also gave DD2's teacher's hat a good steaming so the top would be more smooth. It looks great.

And then in the middle of all this, I went to a charity knit night at my LYS. Thanks to the owner taking DD3 for pretty much the entire evening, I was able to cast on for a beret and get quite a bit done before we all packed up and went home. The next morning I finished it:

Pattern is Linaeus Beret by Jennifer Burke.

Also at the knit night, I discovered they had new sock yarn: "Sock Print", from Nova's Value Collection. 100g balls for just $7.99 each! And the colourways are great. I know it's close to Christmas (heck, how could I not know, what with the rising sense of panic), but I couldn't resist picking these up:

(that one is way more green in real life)

So...how's your holiday knitting coming along?