Pizza, knitting and a bear

Tonight I had my friends over for a Stitch n Bitch. We hadn't gotten together to knit in a couple of months so it was a chance to show our current projects and eat and drink. Unfortunately, because of the holiday season several friends couldn't make it. As a post-marathon treat (to myself) I decided t'heck with cooking or nutrition and picked up a couple of Costco pizzas and shrimp. Jeanette and Anita brought salads, Olivia brought yummy gingerbread and chocolate cookies and Claudia brought peppermint bark and wine. And a bear.
The Gratuitous Holiday Bear of the Day is a little gingerbread man and this picture doesn't do his cuteness and plushness justice. He's adorable, soft and squishy. Thank you Claudia!

I finished the scarf that was my traveling knitting project. It's knit with Karaoke by SWTC, Inc. It's 50% soy silk/50% wool, made in China. I used 2 skeins of the Black Rose for the scarf and it's shorter than my usual 6-7 footers (intentionally). I was lazy and instead of just figuring out a nice easy cable scarf I used a pattern I found from kpixie.com. The Karaoke Cable Scarf was very simple and made a great traveling project. I used size 8 needles and I'm glad; the 7 would have been too tight. The colors in the picture aren't true, especially the brightest red. I was annoyed by the first ball; there was a break in the yarn so the black didn't repeat at all, but I think there's enough black in the finished scarf. I wore it to work and it was toasty warm in my freezing office. I'm trying to decide whether I'll block it since it would open up well, but I'm sure lethargy will rule.I'm hoping to get to the race report this weekend; with long days at work I haven't had a chance to even think about it. Or to write a letter asking for my finisher's hat!