A Little Knit for the Holidays
Just in the St Nick of time (lame pun but I had to do it) for Christmas I whipped up a whole schwack of these little ornaments. I’m planning on using them as part of a cute place setting on Christmas day as my Mum’s house, as well as adding them to any hostess gifts. I’m thinking they will be filled with my favorite little jelly beans. Once I started knitting them, and realized how many I could get from all my yarn scraps I became a bit unstoppable. They are just so cute and colourful and easy.
I have been whipping one up in only a 1/2 hour! That’s at least 4 per viewing of It’s A Wonderful Life. I wish I wouldn’t cry at that movie EVERY TIME. I mean how many times can I see it and still cry when Jimmy Stewart realizes what a wonderful life it really is? I digress.
To make these little cuties you will need some scraps of DK weight (22 stitches per 4″) yarn, or you can treat yourself to some lovely Blue Sky Alpaca Sport or Melange. I like that you can really get almost any Christmas palette going with this yarn, my cousin digs the wintery blues and whites, I’m obviously into the rainbow this year, and my mum loves the traditional greens and reds.
For the fuzzy 2 tone socks I went a little wilder colour-wize: I used some Blue Sky Alpacas Suri Merino for the white and some scrumptious Peter Rabbit from Handmaiden for the fuzzy bits. I think the BSA Brushed suri would also work wonders for the contrast colour. I used 3.25mm double pointed needles.
For the pattern you can purchase it for $5 with instant gratification from Ravelry here. Or you can purchase it for $5 with paypal here and a PDF copy of the pattern will be emailed to you shortly.
A New Look at an Old Favorite
I suppose these patterns aren’t really that old but I thought I would give them another knit in some new yarns. It’s turning colder and I need something quick and satisfying to keep me going through my slog of Christmas knitting. I just read that sentence back and it sounds like I hate Christmas! This is not true, I love Christmas and I love knitting for Christmas. Really. Mostly. There are moments.
Anyhow, back to the scarves. I re-knit the 2×2 cable scarf and the mock cable scarf. For the mock cable I did everything exactly the same but with Luxury Alpaca Sport (a misleading name, it’s not really a sport weight yarn…..) I just added more buttons.The 4 button look gives the scarf a little more structure. It becomes a little more collar-like, which is nice.
I originally purchased these buttons for a sweater but it was not meant to be. I went to Button Button, which is definitely one of my top places to be at any given moment, to get buttons for my Dad’s Christmas sweater (are you picturing a hideously colourful fair isle sweater that is too big? That’s not what it looks like but that image jumps to mind when I hear Christmas sweater). I did not, however, make a note of how many buttons I would need or which size. I guessed it would be 6 buttons and purchased 8 just in case. It took 11 and they were much bigger than I had anticipated. While I am not saddened at the prospect of another Button Button trip, I did feel I should use these buttons wisely. I put 4 on the mock cable scarf and I feel that satisfied my quick project, buttery soft alpaca, and button needs all in one go.
The other re-knit I was working on is the 2×2 button scarf. The yarn I knit it in originally (Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Super Chunky) has been discontinued so I felt it could use a revamp. We recently received some new colours in the Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky at the shop and being a big fan of blue I picked out 2 skeins of Atlantis. I knit this scarf on 10mm needles and omitted the first and last 2 rows of the pattern.
These patterns are availble through Ravelry (Mock Cable Scarf here and 2×2 Cable Scarf here) or you can order through paypal (Mock Cable Scarf here and 2×2 Cable Scarf here) and a copy of the pattern will be emailed to you.
