Giftmas 2015 Knits!

Well, hello! Glad to be back here with you all, and I hope you had a lovely weekend. All of my giftmas knits are in their new homes, so I am free to share them with you!

Up first, we have Anemone's socks-just basic, top-down, with a 1x1 ribbed cuff and garter-edged eye-of-partridge heel flap. My fave.

Ravelry Page: eso si que es

Pattern: basic recipe

Yarn: Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Serenity Sock Weight Prints, "Sapphire"

Next, I knit up a sleeve for my mum's Kindle. I just used a quick little four row/four stitch stranded repeat with a garter stitch band at the beginning, and I did an i-cord with the yarns held doubled for the button loop. Button is courtesy of my button jar, but I think it's an extra from a giftmas knit five years ago.

Ravelry Page: xmas 2015 colorwork sleeve

Pattern: made up on the spot

Yarn: Knit Picks Palette, "Golden Heather," "Abyss Heather"

Then I knit up a quick little something for my friend's toddler so he would have something to open when his parents got their cocoa mix. He's obsessed with cats, so I knit Beans the Cat with worsted weight yarn held double and US10.5 needles. He's a proper little tabby, and I really enjoyed watching him take shape.

Ravelry Page: C's Beans

Pattern: Beans the Cat Knitting Pattern

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Tweed "Dove Heather,"

  Knit Picks Wool of the Andes "Golden Heather"

Finally, another one of my friends from college commissioned a Calorimetry for her mother. I had knit my friend one several years ago, and it's such a quick knit that I was happy to do it.

Ravelry Page: Calorimetry 

Pattern: Calorimetry, by Kathryn Schoendorf

Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes "Midnight Heather"

Christmas Knitting Recap

Aside from the last-minute baby sweater, I only knit two presents this year. First up, we have a Song of the Sea scarf for my mum out of Knit Picks Gloss (thanks to Anemone for modeling!):

I absolutely love how this came out. It was really easy to follow, and it kept a nice rhythm all the way through the project. I loved this yarn, too. It's ridiculously difficult to photograph (picture on the left has the truest to life color), but it was very nice to work with, and the silk adds just enough shine. I did end up adding an extra repeat of the medium size waves, and I switched the ribbed edges for 4 rounds of seed stitch on either side to help prevent rolling. Other than that, I followed the pattern exactly.

Anemone's present was the Red Robin Shawl, in Knit Picks Stroll in Midnight Heather. This yarn is tricky too-it looked deep navy on my computer screen, then almost black in person, and it blocked out to a nice dark, heathered blue in the FO. This knit up very quickly as well, and I added extra repeats to both the textured stitch section and the garter stitch border. I absolutely love how it came out:

I'm really pleased with both of these, and I liked not having to rush knitting presents in the last days before Christmas. However I did end up feeling a little disjointed this Christmas-it never felt quite right, like it was actually Christmas. I wonder how much of that was getting the knitting out of the way so far in advance.

Non-Knitting Xmas

It feels like the past few weeks have been a total whirlwind, and it's only going to get worse until after Xmas, I know. The knitting is still done (!) but I really need a plan for when I'm going to get them blocked and photographed.

But that's not a worry for this week. This week, I'm putting together non-knitting Xmas presents for my old college friends. I tend to get pretty stressed over mass presents like this-I want things that seem more thoughtful than mass-produced, and sustainability and environmentalism are important to me, so I really don't want to give someone a tchotchke that will just need to get thrown out eventually, and I don't want to buy something new when there's plenty of good stuff already out there.

Enter my Great Plan. Everyone likes mason jars, right? And the only thing better than a mason jar is....

A mason jar full of homemade hot cocoa mix!! And the only thing better than that?

TACKY XMAS MUGS.

Seriously. I went to the thrift store in town, which was (serendipitously) having a 1/2 off sale, and got all seven mugs, plus 2 yards of that red checkered fabric. And after packaging everything up, I still have plenty of fabric left over for at least another two years of mason jar gifts. Then I loaded up on ingredients for cocoa mix and started going to town.

Boom. Everyone gets something to open, a delicious snack, and handy storage jar, and a nice addition to their tacky Xmas mug collection. And I even had some mix over for us to keep here.

Not Quite an FO Post

At precisely 9:57 last night, I finished my Xmas knitting. I still have a couple of ends to weave in, and a couple of tiny little seams, but the knitting is done. I'm leaving everything alone for a couple weeks, and then I'll finish the finishing and block them closer to Xmas, so they're still fresh and crisp for their recipients.

That's the last photo you'll get of either of those things for now. I'll take real FO pictures before I wrap them, but nothing will be posted here until the recipients have gotten them. 

This is the first time I've ever been done this early. To be fair, I cut way back this year, but it still feels surreal. It hasn't quite sunken in yet. I still have a few things to buy, but the majority of that should be done this weekend, and I need to mix up some stuff in the kitchen, so I'm not quite ready for Xmas yet. But the knitting is done. That is so huge.

So, true to form, I turned to cashmere.

Yup, definitely worth finishing Xmas knitting early.

Xmas Progress Report

One Xmas present, done but for a bindoff. I'll probably wait to block it until closer to Xmas, so it's nice and fresh when the recipient gets it. But that's the last you'll see of this one for now, in case the recipient looks at the blog between now and Xmas.

That is what's left of the yarn for Xmas present number 2. This one had been on the back burner until I finished number 1, but it's flying right along now. If the recipient wasn't coming home for Thanksgiving, I might even be done before December.

A Brief Xmas Update

Pretty surprisingly, Xmas knitting has been going very smoothly. Mum's present is almost done, and Anemone's yarn came on Friday and is off to a good start. I also got a shiny new yarn scale.

I've been wanting one for ages. I've been weighing things all weekend, and it's ridiculously exciting. I also started working on a new swatch with these yarns:

It's a lot of fun, and I really like it so far. Hopefully I'll have more to share with you guys soon.

I'm also really proud of myself right now. I finally found the perfect pattern for my Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 2-ply, and I came really close to casting on for it this weekend. But I stopped myself. And if Xmas knitting keeps going the way it is, I'll be able to knit all the nice things for myself I want in a couple more weeks.

When Things Don't Go As Planned

I had a big plan for a post yesterday, but my wifi was down almost all day. So now you get this.

I was home sick with some blood sugar issues, so I decided to crank out part of Anemone's xmas present. I was nervous about running out of yarn, and about halfway through yesterday I was ready to tell you all about how I thought the project was cursed.

I don't think it's cursed. It is definitely cursed. I got the part I was most worried about done, and blocked it, and it's just not working. The project I'd picked out was one that would either be absolutely perfect and work so well, or one that would be terrible and unsalvageable. There was no in between, and it had to be scrapped. Thankfully, I made myself power through and figure that out yesterday, so I have time to start something new. I picked out a pattern, and yarn, and just have to wait for it to get here.

I did get a few rows done on my mum's xmas present though, and that's going pretty well so far. I also finished my orange mitts, so I can start bringing mum's present to work to knit over lunch. After finishing the orange mitts, I told myself I couldn't start anything new except for xmas presents and design samples until I was ready for xmas. Which means I'm hitting some serious second mitt syndrome on one of my pattern samples, so I started swatching today for a new one.

I think the swatch is turning into a sample, but I'll have to wait and see how it looks as it gets bigger. The plan I had for it didn't work out, so I'm just going to see how it goes.