Metadecorations

So let me ask you this.  What could possibly be better than decorating your Christmas tree with handmade decorations?

Obviously, the answer is nothing.  Unless of course, you are decorating your Christmas tree with...  wait for it...

Handmade decorated Christmas trees!

I suppose I could have made even tinier Christmas trees to decorate and put on the Christmas trees to put on the Christmas tree (and so on)... but that would soon get to the atomic scale and I don't have any knitting needles smaller than a size 0.  So this will have to do.

Scarfy wrappy things

Lately I've been enjoying the scarves, especially those that can double as a wrap.  The office where I work is often too cold and I don't always want to wear a cardigan so a nice scarf or wrap usually serves just fine.

A great pattern for just this type of thing is Clapotis.  I haven't made it yet but I can see it fitting into my wardrobe pretty well.  It's an older pattern but it's one of those things that would never go out of style.  Unless, of course, you made it in yarn that looks like this:

madelinetosh sock in "Edison Bulb".  I mean, madtosh, you're great and all, but really?

Waste Knit, Want Knit

I was born and raised a Mennonite, which means that I am genetically predisposed to abhor wastefulness.  I've managed to get a little better about getting rid of things when I no longer need them over the years, but I still refuse to throw out perfectly good items when they could instead be donated to the MCC.

Herein lies one of the problems with knitting.  Most of the time when you finish a project, you have yarn left over.  Sometimes it's almost a full ball, sometimes it's a few yards.  I'm still not sure what the minimum amount of yarn left over is too little to keep.  I've started to build up a collection of leftovers of all types of yarn, in skeins the size of my fist to the size of a ping pong ball.  There are a couple of ways to deal with this problem.  One is to find projects that use tiny amounts of yarn (such as Christmas decorations or baby socks or The Beekeeper's Quilt), but this can be difficult.  Also, just because I knit socks for myself out of gorgeous hand wash only wool and am willing to put in the time to wash and dry them properly, doesn't mean that the mother (or father) of a new baby is going to want to hand wash baby socks.  Even though they'd be super cute.

Another way to deal with the problem is so simple it's almost funny.  Knit projects that use an entire skein of yarn, so you have no leftovers!  Obviously you can't do this all the time, and honestly I often don't mind having leftovers of certain yarn.  But when you only need one skein of yarn for a project, you can splurge a little and buy some extra special yarn, which is what I did when I found the pattern for the Destroyed Cowl. (This link requires a scribd account to download but it is also available on ravelry if you have a ravelry account.)

The yarn I used the first time around was Noro Kogarashi which is very unique.  I have no idea what you would use it for if you had any leftovers, but it was great for this project and at around $22 per skein I was happy to only have to buy one of them.  However when you consider that you can get a gorgeous hand-knit cowl for only $22, it's pretty much a bargain.  It was a little scratchy/itchy at first but it softened a lot with blocking and multiple wearings.

This pattern is lots of fun to knit because it uses a few techniques that are fun to try if you haven't done them before, like the provisional cast-on, 

dropping and making stitches,

and kitchener stitch.

Plus at the end when you've grafted both ends together you actually get to pull the dropped stitches apart on both sides of the cowl.  Dropping stitches while you are knitting is usually a horrifying experience, so getting to do it on purpose is kind of a lot of fun.

And in between the first row and the last row is just stockinette so it's a great project to work on when you don't want to think too hard.  The only thinking required is to make sure you leave JUST enough yarn for the last row and grafting the ends together.  The first time I made this I think I ended up with about 12 inches of yarn.  Which, even for my Mennonite sensibilities, is too little to keep.  Problem solved.

Good daughters

Only two weeks left until Christmas!

Finding patterns for variegated yarns is hard.  If you have a variegated sport/fingering/sock yarn and you don't want to make socks, it's sometimes difficult to figure out what to make.  Lacy patterns don't work well because the lace tends to get lost amongst the varying shades of colour, especially among a yarn that is highly contrasting.

Back in June my BFF visited San Francisco and happened to go to a yarn store specifically for me.  Needless to say I was pretty thrilled when she came back with these skeins.

They are both part of the SF Cycle from Sincere Sheep.  Every colourway in the SF cycle was based on a specific neighbourhood in San Francisco and attempted to capture the spirit and personality of that neighbourhood.  The one on the left is based on The Sunset, and the one on the left is based on Castro.  I knew I had to make something special with these, and I still haven't found the right pattern for the Sunset skein... but after perusing endless patterns on ravelry I finally found the pattern for Quilted Lattice Mitts.  I knew I had found the perfect match of yarn and pattern, and I wasn't disappointed.

These were super fun to make, because there is something different happening every row.  It requires concentration but not so much that you can't watch TV or carry on (or at least listen to) a conversation.  Plus the finished project is lots of fun.  I used to laugh at the idea of wearing fingerless mitts in a city like Winnipeg, but I made them anyway, and found that they were all I really needed for the majority of the fall weather.  Plus I didn't have to take them off when answering my phone or responding to a text message (which happens ALL THE TIME because I am VERY popular.  Ahem.)

My mom liked them so much that she ended up asking if I would make her a pair.  Being the good daughter that I am, I said of course and set to work.  I decided to try making the two-colour version for her instead of the variegated kind.  Knitting the two-colour version of these is a good way to get used to having two balls of yarn attached to your work at the same time, kind of like doing stripes.  The best part is that you only carry one colour at a time so the likelihood of brain hurting and yarn tangling is lower than with fair isle knitting.

I had almost finished them when she texted me asking if I had an extra pair of fingerless mitts lying around because my Grandma's hands were always cold.  I said that I was almost finished the ones I was planning on giving to her but if she was willing to sacrifice them I could give them to Grandma instead.  Being the good daughter that my mom is, she said of course and sacrificed the mitts so her mom could have warmer hands.

I haven't started making my mom a new pair yet though.  The good daughter part of me is on hiatus while the selfish knitter in me comes out and I make myself a bunch of stuff.  Sorry Mom, you'll just have to wait.  And anyway, us daughters can't be good ALL the time.  :)

Fierce! No, not like Tyra.

Ever since I found this pattern a year ago I'd been wanting to make it.  A few days after coming across it I was gushing about it to a friend and he immediately asked when he was going to get one.  I just laughed at him.  But in the back of my mind I knew that I was going to make it eventually, and he was probably going to be the recipient.  About a month ago I decided it was time since his birthday was coming up.  And here is the result:

The wings curled pretty bad at first so I just went foraging in my junk drawer and found some twist ties and somehow managed to thread them through the front and back edges of the wings to make them stand out more.  It works well enough.  It at least keeps the wings from curling and even helps to pose the wings slightly so they can really stand out.

Rawr.

Fudge Friday

No, I'm not giving you fudge.

Instead, I'm taking a break today from posting patterns and I'm going to share one of my favourite Christmas songs instead.  It's from the album Almost a Full Moon by Hawksley Workman.  It's an album about Christmas instead of being a Christmas album.  It is mostly made up of non-traditional Christmas songs which some people might not enjoy because non-traditional Christmas songs tend to be terrible, but I really like it.

My favourite song on the album is called Learn How to Knit.  Since I don't know how to post the song without violating a bunch of copyright laws, I'm just going to post the lyrics and say that you should spring for it on iTunes since the song is only $0.99 (but if you manage to acquire it by some other means I promise I won't tell).

This song is so lovely in my opinion because it really captures the spirit of Christmas, the ideal of wanting to give absolutely everything in the world to someone.  But even if you don't have the means or the ability, it's always the thought that really counts.  Enjoy.  :)


Learn How to Knit

I don't have a cent this Christmas
usual it seems.
So I'm gonna learn how to knit

I'll knit you a sweater
I'll knit you a scarf
I'll knit a cigarette holder
I'll knit you an aeroplane to fly and meet me here
I'll knit you the nicest taxi cab to pick you up from the airport.
You get in.

I'll knit you some mittens
I'll knit you some socks
I'll knit you a cigarette holder
I'll knit you the perfect Christmas feast for us to share.
I'll knit you a setting sun that seagulls fly behind on the water

I'll knit you a blanket
I'll knit you a shawl
I might not knit anything at all
if my clumsy hands don't learn how to knit by Christmas day.
Would still invite me by to celebrate the day in the morning
if all I brought was a kiss?

A Parliament of Owls

Today's pattern is one that I've made a few times, with pretty good results.  It's called Cutest Little Owl and I really think it lives up to its name.  A few of my cousins had babies this year and I thought it was a great gift for them.  It doesn't take long to make, doesn't take much yarn, and can be made out of any number of adorable colour combinations.

The blue owl was the first one I made, it was for my cousin's baby boy, who I hear enjoys it (even though I'm sure he's too young to know what it is, or at least he was when he got it.)  The green and yellow ones below were for my cousin's two girls.  The green one went to the new baby and the yellow one went to her big sister (I always hated it when my little brother got a new toy and I didn't).  I hear the yellow one's name is "Amy", and once it was misplaced and had to be located before bedtime was allowed to happen.  (insert 'awwwww' noises here)

Anyway, I don't know how wise these owls are, but I would totally vote for them.