KNITTING WITHOUT DOG HAIR IS NOT AN OPTION

It was such a lovely holiday party. Jacquie opened her wonderful house - her living room/kitchen set-up is just awesome for parties - to a merry bunch of knitters. Including Jacquie's husband, daughter and daughter's friend, who all joined us to eat, we were 25 in total.

Just a warning - I took a bunch of pictures, but most of them suck because either my camera was not dealing well with the lighting or the batteries were low... So this is a picture-heavy blog entry with low-quality pix, but hopefully you will find more and better pictures on other blogs eventually.

So, at the party were people with a blog:
Alma, Regan, Steve, Sandy, Doug, Phyllis, Janice, Jen, Melissa, Allison, Jane, Katey and Laura

And people without a blog:
Michael - Doug's other half, Meg, Linda, Melissa (yes, the one who brought her wheel and forgot to take it home... we are trying to think of a way to keep it at Jacquie's house... let us know if you have a good excuse...), Shari, Tammy, Diana, and of course the hostess with the mostess, Jacquie.

We started out by arranging the food:

Of course, it was premature to take pictures of the food because much more showed up later on. And here are some of the guests:

Jacquie, Regan and Linda

Melissa and Jen (on the sofa), Jane in the center, Janice and Katey at the back

Michael, Doug and Sandy (l to r)

Allison, Jane, Diana, Tammy and Shari (l to r)

After we ate and everyone settled down with knitting, we had a little birthday surprise for Regan:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, REGAN!

She seemed to like her gifts because the roving and yarn went straight around her neck and down the front of her shirt. ;-)

OK, I admit I have stalker tendencies... But Ms. Jen wore really hot shoes and I had to take a picture:

And then the real fun began - the Chinese Auction. Everyone brought a gift, we distributed numbers and people got up to pick a gift when it was their turn. The rules (I hope I can still get them all together):

You can steal a gift from someone else. A gift can be stolen only three times. You can't steal your gift back. You can't go to the bathroom with your gift and hide (or hide it). ;-) And the number one can choose another gift at the very end and start the fun all over. Here are some of the gifts. As I said before, my camera acted up...

At some point, people got a bit braver and started stealing gifts, and some defended their gifts fiercely... But I think because all the gifts were so awesome, nobody really needed to steal anything.

And some chocolate changed owners within nanoseconds...

Jane knitted the beautiful Latifa (picture on the right) and Melissa stole it from Alma and then lost it to Shari.

Which then caused Alma to pick another gift and she got Doug's beautiful hand-made ornament. And Doug lost the basket (he-he-he...) to Melissa. So there. ;-)

All in all, I have to say that will probably be the best party of this holiday season. Everyone brought a great gift and wonderful food to share. I am so lucky to have such cool friends.

So I went home with leftovers for Hubby, the cute project bag, the rest of Jane's World Famous Chocolate Cream Cheese Fudge, which will be a treat for my coworkers tomorrow, and (drum roll please) some knitting inspiration for the lace dress. Yes, even tho' I knitted only a few rows on the Wisp because there was so much action at the party, I went home, pulled out the lace dress and lit the first Advent candle:

And I am glad I did because I truly forgot how yummy that Tilli Tomas silk is to knit with. I am still wired from the party and an overdose of caffeine, and now I am trying calm down with a glass of white wine. It is 12:30am and way past my bedtime... Oh, well, HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Surely some knitting and TV will make me sleepy.

PS: I found the sock blockers I brought for the Chinese auction on eBay at Chappy's Fiber Arts and Crafts. She delivered fast, and has a ton of different sock blocker designs and sizes. And other stuff, too. ;-)