First off, thanks to everyone who entered my birthday contest by sharing what you’re grateful for in the comments! In a random draw, the winner is Tonja! Congratulations, I’ll send it off this week. For those of you still hoping to win a copy of RH, Deb Marshall has extended her contest until next Sunday, so drop on over there and enter if you haven’t already.

For those of you who’ve been around for a while, you might know that about three years ago I taught myself to knit (with help from a book, a class, and a lot of desperate emails to my fantastic friend & knitter, Annika). Back in the fall of 2009, yes, that long ago, I bought yarn to make my husband a wool sweater. I just finished it today. Actually, I finished it a while ago, but the arms were so long you couldn’t see his fingertips (that’s the problem with surprise gifts). Annika told me how to shorten them, but it involved CUTTING the sleeves off!!!! So I finally screwed up the courage to cut it yesterday (oh, just like when you cut a manuscript…you have to take a deep breath and then just do it) and guess what? It was super easy to fix. So, here is the final sweater, modeled by my wonderful husband. And guess what? I even made the hat!