holiday knitting

Even though it's the end of January, it's never too late to write up my knitting recap from the holidays, right? :)

For Christmas, I planned a variety of knitting projects to go with my gifts.  Since this was something I was going to enjoy, not feel pressure with, I kept thinking of other ideas along the way of things I could gift instead of my knitting if I didn't get it done.  But actually, I ended up making additional knitted gifts because I got done *faster* with most things that I thought.

Happy Clapotis Scarf.  For a gift for my mother-in-law, I wanted something fairly light because she's in CA, and so a regular warm scarf was not going to be great.  I didn't think I had the time to do a full clapotis wrap, but I found a scarf sized version that looked more usable.  And then for the yarn, I did some research (Knitty Boards, membership required to view) because I wasn't as excited about the chunky look from the scarf pattern, and the Lion and Lamb that the wrap had was nice but not from a yarn store I normally shop at.  I found that Knit Picks had some great colors of their Shimmer, and I was sold, it had beautiful color options and was baby alpaca and silk which seemed like it would be light.  Then I found someone on Ravelry (CaseyK's clapotis) who had used the same yarn and colorway triple stranded, and that looked like a really nice weight, so I went with that.

Actually knitting this was a joy.  I had so much fun figuring out the stitches and anticipating when the next drop happened.  It curled up a bit while knitting, but then blocking it made all the difference in the world, the drop ladders turned out all straight and perfect and much more beautiful than I thought.  I would seriously consider making myself a full Clapotis wrap if I could think of somewhere to wear it.

Stripey Anastasia Socks.  For my mom.  I thought she might be the only person who would appreciate socks, and plus with our drawing names, I wasn't sure who I would get to have enough time for this project.  I knew that she had slightly smaller feet than me (and in hind sight, I probably still should have made them a little less long), and so that helped for knowing what measurement to use.

I found the yarn before picking a pattern.  When I saw the Felici yarn from Knit Picks when they introduce it, I knew the Firefighter colorway was totally her.  So then I just had to find a pattern that would work okay with this yarn and be a little more interesting than just straight stockingette.  The Anastasia pattern had a spiral that was reversed on the 2nd sock, and that looked like fun to knit (it was). 

I started these when I first got the yarn, but then did them slowly alongside all the other gifts, so it was the last thing finished of my gifts.  They blocked up really nicely, although my k2tog/yo and ssk/yo aren't exactly the same size, so the holes on the 2nd sock are slightly bigger, and that was a little sad.  It's certainly not as noticeable when the socks are on.

Chocolatty Armwarmers and Scarf.  For Lisa, who works in the family business in an office/warehouse that is cold.  I figured she could use these armwarmers when driving and typing in the cold.  I saw someone on Ravelry (lixolux) a while back that had armwarmers with plaits (braids) instead of the fancy flowery cable from the pattern, and I really liked that.  My Stitchionary comes in handy for that, and I'd used the plaited cable on an afghan square already, so I knew I could do it. And I was more comfortable this time around with doing cabling without a cable needle, which came in handy!

And then instead of looking for the suggested Noro online, I found some people making things out of the new Debbie Mumm yarn, which I could get at Jo-Ann's w/o stressing about finding a real yarn store.  This yarn was not great to knit with, but the finished product was pretty good.  The repeats in colors weren't the same anywhere in the 2nd skein so I had to do a lot of work to make them look the same. 

These were such a fast knit that as I got to the end of my holiday knitting, I decided to make a really skinny scarf to go with them.  I did it in the same rib as the armwarmers, and every once in a while, I put the plait cable in.  I made it nice and long and I enjoyed trying it on for photos :)

Pink stretchy Ballet Slippers and Legwarmers.  For my niece, Leah, along with other ballet themed presents.  My original plan for knitting for her was to make mittens.  But then once I got further in my shopping, it seemed like it would be more fun to give her something more ballet-ish.  So I tried to use my purchased skein of Swish Superwash to make ballet slippers (Twinkle Toes from Knitty), but I ran out of yarn too fast after the first one.  I didn't want to wait to get more, so I did some searching and found people making them with Cascade Fixation, which I knew I could get at Craft Warehouse, and in pink was going to be more happy anyhow.

I love the construction of these.  I've finally gotten very comfortable with short rows, and so this was easy.  I made the ties a little longer, but I still wish I'd gone further, they didn't wrap around twice like ballet slippers very easily.  The stretchy yarn was fun to work with, and they really did strech well.  Of course, this made them look little in the package!  I think I could have made them a little bigger and had them work for longer, but I made the kids size already, so I was scared I was overthinking it.

Then when I was shopping for the Cascade Fixation, I thought I'd also get some yarn and make some stretchy legwarmers to go with.  I used the Fixation held with a variety of other worsted weight yarn (Wool-Ease, the Swish Superwash, and some Knit Picks Twist I picked up on clearance).  They didn't quite come out as strechy as I'd hoped, and it took me a little longer due to wanting to weave in ends as I went but not detatch yarn.  I should have done them on dpns, but I was trying to get a feel for using circular needles on small diameters, so this also took me a lot more adjusting than I wanted.  Overall, I wish I'd made them a little bigger and even maybe just with the fixation instead of stripes.

Baby slip-stitch mittens.  For my nephew, Leonard.  I wanted to make him something to keep him warm, but thought he might just pull a hat off and a scarf would be hard to keep on too.  I found several patterns for mittens that were thumbless, for babies, and that seemed like a nice idea.  But the more I looked, the less happy I was with any one pattern.  I ended up combining details of multiple patterns and going ahead with thumbs.

Also, I found patterns with some sort of neat stitch patterns on them, and I liked those, but I was worried about getting his little fingers caught.  So I came up with a slip stitch pattern that looked like it was fair isle instead.  This made for a nice warm and pretty mitten.  I had a hard time with getting the placement of the thumb right and the length of the mitten to actually look like the length of his hand.  It took quite a few tries to get it right, but I really like how it turned out in the end.  The thumb was stripey to keep the bulk of the fabric down, and that looked super cute.

The thing I was most disappointed with was my i-cord.  I still don't feel like my i-cords are very even, and I tried to jazz this one up with alternating the colors, which made for ends to weave in and potentially look funny after some wears.

But the best thing was Leonard wearing the gloves around his neck from the i-cord on Christmas Eve.  Even if he doesn't wear them much, that picture in my head was worth it!