Last Minute Christmas Knits

Hello Festive Crafters!

It's Kerry from Kestrel Finds and Makes. By now I'm sure that most of you have your handmade pressies wrapped up and ready to be gifted. I wanted to share my two Christmas knitting projects with you - one which has already been sent and opened and the other which is for my sister-in-law to open tomorrow.

First up, Owl & Pussycat Mittens for Sian Lile Makes as part of a Christmas Blog Swap which was to include handmade and thrifted items.

I used the pattern for Owl Mittens which can be on for free on Ravelry, and made one owl into a cat.

As Sian is vegan and was concerned about the potential of wool farming to be harmful, I used organic wool which had been dyed using natural dyes.

My Blue Leaves Scarf was made using the Saroyan pattern (also free - don't you love Ravelry?!) and Sirdar Sublime aran yarn which is a mix of cashmere, extra fine merino and silk. It is beautifully soft. My sister in law wanted a blue scarf and I loved the lace leaf edging and tapered ends of this scarf. It's a straightforward knit too, perfect for beginner lace knitters.

I hope you all managed to get your handmade gifts finished up this year. I didn't make as many as I had intended, but I bought some handmade things, which is nearly as good in my opinion, and definitely better than just buying something from Amazon! Maybe next year I'll be a bit more productive!

Now I just need to wrap the last of my presents. A very Merry Christmas everyone!

K x

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

An update on my project progress

Hi there, it's Katie from The Little Red Squirrel again, I just wanted to share with you two of my Christmas projects, one completed and one nearly done!

First up is the scarf for my mum, and it is finished, yay! 

Obviously it needs to be pressed, the ends need to be sewn in and the seams stitched up, but the colour work is all done so I'm thrilled. I honestly didn't know whether or not I would be able to finish this one in time for Christmas, it was a bit complicated!

Here's a close up of the yummy fair isle pattern...

I wanted to make a pair of matching gloves as well, but I'm leaving those for now while I finish all my other presents, if I have time I will try and make the gloves as a little bonus :) I have also been working on my Dad's scarf, and it's coming a long nicely as you can see here:

This scarf is worked completely in moss stitch on quite large needles so it grows quickly which is great :) I've altered the pattern quite a bit from the original because I'm going to double the scarf up and sew a seam to make it extra warm and cosy :) Here's a close up so you can see the yummy texture of the scarf, I really love it!

So yeah, I'm pretty thrilled with my progress so far (I have also made one of a pair of gloves for my friend Harriet and have started the second), as when I get these scarves finished I will only need to make a laptop case for my brother and then I've completed everything big that I planned! Of course then I'll probably decide to make even more things and I'll be working right up until the last minute anyway!

I hope your Christmas Crafts are going well, bye for now!

Pom Pom Scarf

Sadly I don't know how to knit, I was taught by someone's gran when I was in infant school (I remember I had emerald green knitting needles) but I didn't keep it up and now I wouldn't know where to start.  I have hinted rather a lot to my boyfriend that I would love the Cath Kidston 'How to Knit Kit' but I'm not sure if Father Christmas will be bringing that to me this year...I'll just have to wait and see!

I can, however, make pom poms and when I saw this I thought I can make one of those!  So I bought some wool that I thought would fluff up nicely and set to making large pom poms.  I like the method of wrapping the wool around my fingers/hand rather than a circle of card.  I wrapped the wool round my hand about 50 times to get the size of pom pom I wanted, but obviously the less times you wrap round your hand the less dense the pom pom.  If you want smaller pom poms just wrap them round a few of your fingers.  Once wrapped round desired times, carefully slip the wool off your hand and tie a length of wool around the middle of the loops making sure it's tied tightly.  Then snip all of the loops, make sure the wool is roughly the same length the whole way round and then fluff by ruffling the wool between your fingers until it's either as fluffy as you want it or your fingers are about to drop off!  (I'm not kidding!  My hands actually hurt after making the second one of these scarfs!  I need fluffier wool to begin with I think.)

Once I'd made 18 pom poms I got a large embroidery needle and threaded the same wool I was using for the pom poms through and then sewed all the pom poms together tying a knot in the wool on either side of each pom pom.  I kept my pom poms close together as when I tried to make mine like the one in the link above I kept getting tangled and worried I'd end up either strangling myself or breaking the scarf in frustration as I try and de-tangle myself.

This is my finished project and I'm really pleased with it, it's made it onto my Christmas list of things to make:

I used two different colour yarns of wool, the colours don't show very well sorry but one was blue with yellow and the other blue with purple

It was easy to make, a little time consuming but you don't really have to concentrate so easy to make whilst watching tv!  Happy Pom Pom-ing!