Most Thoughtful Christmas Gift Award...

...goes to...the out-of-laws! Yes, Thaddeus' sister and brother-in-law came up with by far, the most thoughtful (and generous) gift this year for a Christmas gift.

Way Better Than What I Had
My sister-out-of-law went out of her way to make sure this Christmas was very special for me.

First of all, she read the blog enough to know that when I ply yarn, my version of a lazy-kate is this:

Yes...it's an Allen Edmonds shoe box!

Then she researched the spinning wheel I own and found out that it's a Robin wheel. She did some further research and ended up getting in contact with the Gil (the guy who actually makes Robin wheels) and embarrassingly told him that I use a shoe-box as a lazy-kate.

Gil was able to locate the same wood he used to make my original wheel, and then make another masterpiece in wood.

The new lazy-kate arrived this past weekend and I couldn't be more pleased. Here are a few more photos.

I can't wait to get back to spinning so that I can see what it's like to ply yarn with a proper lazy-kate!

Current Knitting
I have done precious little knitting since my last blog post...or at least knitting that I can show on the blog.

I probably got about five rows of knitting done on the collar of the zippered cardigan, and I'm currently sitting in Philadelphia airport, realizing that I completely forgot to put ANY knitting in with my packing this week.

I was able to finish test-knitting a great little pattern for friend Kyle...at one point I'll be able to post a photo when he publishes his pattern.

Men's Spring Knitting Retreat Scholarship
Wednesday is the last day I will accept any entries for the 2011 Men's Knitting Retreat lottery.

Thanks again to all who participated...there will be two lucky guys who will benefit significantly from your generosity.

Nominations are still being accepted...see instructions in last blog entry.

Make sure you get any nominations in to me at queerjoe@comcast.net by the deadline of January 28th.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Kyle (aka kylewilliam) writes, "Did you knit the double sole for the slippers? The two times I made them I didn't read the directions fully and didn't knit the second sole..."

I did.  The first time I ever knit this pattern, I was fortunate to have had a friend in my LYS who had made them before me, else I might have missed that instruction as well.