And Minty begins

I dug out the pale bluish-green yarn last night, and got out the same old "Friends Forever Fawn" pattern, and started on Minty. I'm  happy to be working on her now. I hope I can get her done before Christmas break.

There's something about making toys for me around this time of year. It just makes me happy. When I was a kid, of course, one of the features of Christmas was toys (Yes, I knew what Christmas is really about, and that's the most important thing, but toys are also nice). I always make toys over Christmas break because toys are fun. I plan to take the Shetland-Pony-in-a-Sweater pattern I bought (and buy yarn for it up there; I use simple acrylic for my toys so it's easy to obtain). I also have a little "Ocean animal" kit (can make a whale, a starfish, or an octopus with the provided yarn) that came free with an issue of Simply Knitting and I'm going to take that. (And have to decide if I want the little whale or the little octopus more, and make that - there's just enough yarn for one).

All the toy making is even though I have a lot of clothing-projects I want to finish (two sweaters that just lack one sleeve and finishing; several socks; a couple scarf/shawl things). And this could be a concern:

That's the Yule Cat. Some old bit of Icelandic folklore; supposedly it eats people who don't get at least one piece of new clothing before Christmas.

(Yes, this is apparently a really real thing and there are some terrifying yet hilarious "artist's renditions" of that cat over there)

Though, apparently, the legend is more based on "it eats people who don't want to work hard" so maybe I'm protected even if I don't finish one of the sweaters before Christmas.....