Xmas Knitting 2011!

I wasn't planning on knitting anything for Christmas this year, and I was dead set against knitting Christmas gifts especially since I had already purchased gifts for all of the family members this year.  Well on the 20th I managed to finish the handspun scarf I had been working on for as a little thank you gift to our real estate agent.

As much as I really don't care for the color blue, I love the way this scarf turned out.  There are darker bits, lighter bits and of course all of the ones in the middle.  I did a basic, reversible, no curling kind of pattern in order to show off the yarn.  Believe it or not the mindless knitting was insanely addicting to do.

Pattern:  Beginners Reversible Scarf
Yarn:  Handspun  100% Merino
Comments:  I loved the pattern and I loved the yarn.  I did block it out, and it is incredible soft.  I was a bad spinner and didn't bother to set the twist prior to knitting (shame on me!) but it turned out just fine.

I am definitely keeping this pattern for future reference.  It was so much fun to knit and got me into a huge knitting high which made me want to knit other people gifts.  Yes, I who wasn't going to knit any gifts this holiday season decided on the 21st of December (after blocking the handspun scarf) that I wanted to knit my future sister-in-law and sister both little gifts for Christmas.

Insanity?  I think so.  First thing is first, I picked up the phone and called my sister to see what her favorite colors were, and had my fiance call his sister to see what colors she liked.  She said blues and purples, my sister chose greens.  Then I went into the stash and dumped all of my yarn onto the floor pulling out all of the blues, purples and greens I could possibly find.  I have a lot of purple.  A LOT of purple.  Blues I had a few of, most that were purchased with the intention of knitting gifts ages ago.  Green, is something fairly scarce in my stash.  I have some green, but again it was not green that I myself had purchased with intentions of knitting.  Then with my new collection of yarn I wanted to use, I rushed back to Ravelry to search for projects that would match their personalities and the stash yarn I had found.

For L my future sister-in-law I selected a skein of noro kureyon sock yarn that had been lingering in my stash for about 3 years.  Of course the original plan was to make me a pair of handknit socks but honestly living in South the chances of me wearing wool socks is pretty slim now.  When I lived in Ohio, it happened quite often during the winter or when just relaxing around the house.  So I took the sock yarn, and cast on for a Clapotis Scarf.  This was the first Clapotis I ever attempted, and now I understand exactly why the pattern is so popular.  Man was it addicting.  I started it on the 21st and finished it the afternoon of the 27th.

Pattern:  Clapotis
Yarn:  Noro Kureyon Sock - Color 188
Comments:  I did have one knot in the skein.  I HATE when there are knots especially with Noro since it throws off all of my color repeats.  I did remove the yarn after the knot in order to line up the color repeat, then used some of that removed yarn at the end to make the scarf a little longer.  In all I used 84 grams of yarn and got a decent length scarf!  I have definite plans to knit more of these in the future, they were easy carry along projects and were my travel knitting for a few days.

When I finished this, I immediately turned to the beret I wanted to make for my little sister.  She loves handknits and has always been one of my biggest supporters as far as my hobbies goes.  I have made her countless scarves, hats and socks over the years and she wears them until they fall apart.  I can't count the pairs of socks I've had to repair or scarves that have ripped due to her continuous wear.  (She will put a pair of socks on, and wear them non-stop until they have holes in the bottom.)  This of course means it is very easy to knit for my sister.

I found a little bit of green yarn in my stash.  Unfortunately this picture does not do the color of the yarn justice.

This yarn is a bright emerald green!  And when I say bright, I mean bright.  Once upon a time I found myself completely addicted to my craft, and it seems I've re-discovered my love of not only yarn, but knitting as well.  I don't know if it's the easy patterns, or the finished objects but I'm finding myself itching to crawl back into my yarn closet and pull out some fibery goodness.  This beret was a piece of cake.  The pattern was well written, easy to follow and was knit on BIG needles (10s and 11s) which made it a very quick knit!  I cast on late on the 27th, and cast off early on the 29th.  I think in total it took me only 5 hours to knit the entire thing from start to finish.

Pattern:  Star Crossed Slouchy Beret
Yarn:  Berella Muskoka in Green Clover
Comments:  This yarn was gifted to me years ago in a sock swap that was happening online.  Nice yarn, I wasn't crazy about the color and I had no idea what I was going to do with it since it's definitely NOT me.  Thankfully, it is my sister's color.  Only used about 70 grams of yarn (about 140 yards) so it was a quick knit and would be a great project for handspun!