A Handful of Scarflets

Oh my, how time is flying by! I'm Alessa from Farbenfreude, and I'm on my last week of uni before Christmas break. I still have to finish up all the little gifts for my friends before Saturday, as I'm making my way home to visit my family on Sunday. For now, I've been knitting up scarflets (pattern from here). One each for my two grandmas,one for my stepdad, one for my boyfriend (who has already appropriated it) and the green one is actually for me. :)

I really like the pattern for these little scarflets. They're pretty, warm but not too bulky, they knit up very quickly and if careful, they one require one skein (50g or 110-160yd) of dk weight yarn! It took me a little while to figure out how to make that happen, since the pattern requirements state two skeins of yarn. However, since I had made the first scarf wider by 4 stitches and only started on the second skein about 10 rows from completion, I was sure they could be made out of only one! After a couple of failures and having to unravel and shorten one scarf slightly, I now have a fabulous trick:

1. At the beginning: weigh your yarn (I used my kitchen scale). I know it should have a weight on it. Do it anyway. (In the instance of the green scarf, this was 50g.)
2. Knit the first "bow" part, first "loop" part and the first row of joining the loop. Weigh your yarn again. Subtract, and you will have the amount of yarn needed for the loop and bow part. (In my case: 12g)
3. Knit the straight/middle part until it is either long enough or you have just the right weight left to knit the loop&bow (I left myself 1-2g of margin for error, starting on the loop with 14g left. Unraveling is not much fun.) Even if you think it may be too short, it'll probably be ok since the garter stitch is able to stretch out nicely.

I still have one scarflet to go, as well as two socks from the heel up. I found out how to knit socks from the toe up using a magic loop (circular needle)! It really feels like magic and is highly convenient! :)

Since there will be a little Christmas party with most of my friends on Saturday, I've decided to also make some little gifts that aren't too difficult or time-intensive, just so I have a little treat to give to everybody. I was inspired by something I recently saw at a specialty food store, although I've also seen similar ones on Pinterest and other websites:

Real chololate hot-chocolate spoons! I bought some wooden sticks (actually, tongue depressors, from the apothecary), chocolate, dried orange peel and vanilla essence, and I'll have to think about combinations to use tomorrow. I love the combination of dark chocolate and orange flavor, so that is one. I'm also thinking dark chocolate and almond flavor, or apple, cinnamon and rum-raisins, although I'm not sure how to get an apple flavor. A tablespoon of cider? Anyway, my plan is to pour the chocolate into an ice-cube tray, let it set for a bit, stick in the wooden "spoons" and put into the fridge. Then wrap them up in some cellophane and put a little bow and tag on them, and they should be good to go! :)

Hope you have fabulous holidays!
Alessa xxx