Merry Christmas (or holiday of your choice) from the Korknisse! These guys were great fun to make -- they took maybe a half-hour each. The pattern is available in English, Dutch, and Norwegian, but really you can just cast on say 12-20 stitches on small needles and knit around in 1x1 rib until you have an inch or so for a sweater, then cast on the same number of stitches for the hat and start decreasing after a couple of rows. They were a big hit with my family, too -- I made them as last-minute gifts.
My roommate's cat Darwin does not wish to share any holiday wishes, but rather would like to tell you to stop making him wear freaking baby sweaters:
Her other cat, Watson, was marginally more sanguine about it:
The sweater is the 5 Hour Baby Sweater in leftover Wool-Ease. I knitted it several years ago and never even sewed up the arm seams (which made it easier to put on the cats).
As a little after-Christmas not-really-present for myself, I ordered some very tiny circular needles so that I could get to work on my Norwegian ski sweater. Check it out:
I cannot even deal with how tiny these are! They are size 0000. I don't know that I'll actually need to use them, but I got them sort of as insurance in case my knitting gets too loose for 00s and 000s. They're HiyaHiyas, and I haven't knitted with them yet but the join feels really nice and they're fairly inexpensive -- $7.50 each, I think, from The KnittingZone, who also had free shipping for orders over $50 (and, well, you can always use a couple of extra skeins of sock yarn to pull your total up to $50). And the shipping was fast!
So I should be casting on for the Sapporo soon. I can't remember the last time I made a sweater. I don't have any sweaters that I've made -- they've all gone to Goodwill. But I'm surely a much smarter knitter than I was the last time I tried, and I'm knitting it in the yarn that's suggested in the pattern and everything. It should be quite straightforward.
On a less ominous note, here are the Christmas presents I knitted this (last!) year:
For my mom, a Palindrome scarf for my mom, in Cascade 220 superwash:
I think maybe I need to make myself a light box or something if I want to photograph my knitting -- I'm only home for about 1 hour of sunlight a day, and the angle it comes in through the window is very inconvenient for photography. Suffice it to say, the scarf does not actually glow in person.
This scarf is completely reversible, which I thought made it great for my mom who is very classy in her dress and generally not a huge fan of things that look homemade. I think this was a nice "handmade, not homemade" present, and she seemed to like it a lot.
For my stepmother, an entirely different scarf, from the What-Not-Scarf pattern:
Another terrible picture, I know. At least the korknisse look cute! This is in Manos del Uruguay in a very nice autumnal colorway. It's probably about eight feet long. Another successful gift -- she put it on when she took the dog out on Christmas afternoon!
For my not-exactly-step sister, Dashing mitts in Berroco Pure Merino, a very nice superwash yarn that I will be using again for sure (very soft and squishy -- hopefully it doesn't pill up too much):
These seemed to be well-received. The kids are wearing those kinds of things these days, aren't they?
My most disappointing gift was this hat for my father:
The pattern is Spiral Hat (PDF) by Bethany Kok. I found the twisted stitches very hard on my wrists, at least with the yarn I was using (Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran, which is pretty and has great subtle complex color but which I probably won't buy again). Anyway, this hat is like the definition of "Meh" the pattern doesn't show off the pretty subtleties of the yarn, and I had to wear a wrist brace to finish it.
