Haven’t pulled the trigger yet, but…

…I did determine that the yarn to make Lillehammers for the female Denizens (including me) would run $121.39 if I went with the Telemark from KnitPicks.

Not too shabby for four sweaters; the adult sized one is a hair under $42, the two bigger kids are just under $30 each and the smallest is $20.

Knitting is such an awesome hobby to have (she said, expressing a completely unbiased opinion of the sport) (ahem).

For $121.39, I can make four custom sweaters that would run, what, gads…well, quick Google search seems to indicate that if you were able to get a similar sweater pre-knit, it could run you as much as {gulp} $400 ($200 for the less complicated ones, more for the crazy-talk ones like the Lillehammer) (hey, found one for “just” $150 on eBay!)…just for the women’s medium. Each of the kids sweaters would run around a hundred bucks.

I’m just going to take a moment here to pause and reflect on paying a hundred bucks for a toddler’s sweater. HA! HAHAHAHAHA! HA! {snicker!} {snort!}

Ya know, maybe there are toddlers out there in the world who don’t instantly wreck their clothes.

I suspect they are considerably more “managed” than mine ever were. I’m afraid I just couldn’t be the kind of parent whose children were always neat and tidy…mine are always the ones with dirty pant hems, ink-stained sleeves, holes in their knees and splatters of Gosh-Knows-What all over. They come by it honestly, at least – that’s what my clothes look like most of the time, too, since I never pause to think about my clothes before dropping to my knees in the dirt to get a closer look at newly sprouting squash, or firing up my rangetop, or daubing dye on something.

Even if the thought does occur to me that maybe I should go change into my “junk” clothes, I always immediately follow that up with “nah, I’m only going to do this one thing, and I’ll just be Super Careful.”

Please see ridiculous number of references to my inability to learn from past experience, scattered throughout this blog.

ANYWAY. I could pay $500 for four pre-made sweaters, or I can make all four for less than I’d pay for just the adult size.

And then I get to knit them, a process that would take a minimum of 24 weeks of my undivided knitting-time attention…probably more.

So my entertainment tab is pretty much covered for at least six months.

And then when I’m all done, we have sweaters that nobody, not even a non-knitter, could possibly mistake for something that came out of the last chance bin at WalMart. Sweaters that say, “Wow! Matching wool sweaters, huh? In California no less. {pause} Dude. Your mom is, like…wow…have you ever thought of calling CPS or some junk…?”

Awesome.

You know what else? I will bet you a burrito right here and now that after I’d finished all these, I’d find that I had tons of yarn leftover (which I don’t dare count on and buy a few balls less because we all know how that ends) (weeping…gnashing of teeth…rending of hair…frantic screams for help on Ravelry, does anybody have two balls of Color X in dyelot ABC123 pleasepleaseplease, it’s an emergency!).

So I could then make the matching hats and mittens and stockings, too! It’s Dork-A-Palooza, folks, c’mon down and join the fun…oh-oh-oh! Maybe, I could even crochet little nose bags for everybody, because noses need love too, right?

DOUBLE awesome!

(I can imagine the call to CPS now. “Hi, ya, my mom? She’s, like, crazy or something? Ya…double-knit wool…California…six matching sweaters…we’re, like, refugees from a 1950s sitcom over here…with nose bags…oh, nose bags? They’re, like, little things that you put over your nose, and they have strings that tie behind your head, and…oh, the cop’s here, that was fast…”)