Category: Knitting

My New Christmas Toy

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That I got in the mail this week. I used a Christmas gift certificate to buy it, so technically it was a Christmas present.

This is a yarn swift. See, some yarn comes wrapped in circles called “skeins”. These are really obnoxious to wind into balls because they like to tangle in on themselves no matter how much you try to keep them lying flat. In steps the swift that holds the circle tight and spins around to keep the yarn untangled.

Working with the yarn winder and swift is fun. In fact, it is so much fun that I am planning to keep my “stash” yarns in skeins to wind them when I need them again. That and I read that it is more gentle on the yarns. When they sit around wound into balls it can stretch the yarn out and cause shrinking when you wash what you have knit. I tried to find where I read that, but I don’t feel like doing more than five minutes of research right now.

I can also mark down approximately how much yardage I have left by counting how many times I wrap the yarn around the “niddy-noddy” to make the skeins. Makes it much easier later to know what I can make out of the yarn.

The swift is supposed to go on the side of a table, but the desk in my room is larger than the opening at the bottom of the swift. However, it fits perfectly on the arm of my chair as you can see in the first picture. That does make it the perfect height to stand next to while winding the yarn.

Everyone has something that other people think is boring that they love doing. I also love licking envelopes. I actually like the taste of envelope glue. What random things do you get excited about doing that other people think are strange or boring?

More Minions

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But not full-body toys, this time. This one was a request from the minion-obsessed four-year-old.

It’s a minion hat! The minion hat I mentioned working on here, to be exact. It’s made from Knit Picks’ Comfy Worsted in Dandelion, Celestial, Hawk, and White with a black button in the eye and Knit Picks’ Stroll in Midnight in a pom-pom on top for the hair.

It would have taken one day to make, had it not been for having to start over when I had most of the hat made. But, having worked from the already knit hat backwards I was left with the beginning of another hat:

Which will be a surprise for this hat’s recipient’s grandmother. Except I have to put two eyes on it, because it has to be different from this one, of course. By request of the four-year-old himself.

You can find more specific information on everything on the Ravelry project page.

Wrapping Up 2013

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It’s completely cliché, but appropriate in this case. That is because I am ending the year with a write-up of my Christmas presents. Ok, not mine (which were approximately 95% coffee-related. I don’t plan on sleeping until 2015 with my new caffeine supply.) but the ones I actually got made.

It never fails, I know Christmas happens at the end of December, yet I always seem to wait until November to start making Christmas presents. I swear one of these years I’m going to start earlier. I make no promises on which year that will be, but one of these years I’m going to do it.

Anyway, on to the presents I managed to finish in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. First up I finished a shawl for one of my grandmothers:

This is also the thing I took the most pictures of:

Thanks to the remote viewfinder app for my camera, I can be my own model:

Next up is a warm little set for a friend, a basket weave hat

and a pair of fingerless mitts.

Here’s how they look on the hand (well, one hand, anyway):

Next up is a cross-stitched iPhone cover for another friend:

Unfortunately, the edges flared out and it became kind of misshapen as you can see in the picture.

Last we have what I’m calling the “Meta Coffee Cup Cozy”

because it is a picture of a coffee mug to go around a morning coffee.

I also gave my other grandmother her half-made scarf with the needle cable still through it and capped at the ends. But I obviously had to take that one back because I am still finishing it. Not bad for starting way too close to Christmas to actually get anything done. Maybe 2014 will be the year I don’t procrastinate on Christmas gifts…

(P.S. – Click on the name of the knitted gifts to go to the Ravelry project page for more information on the item.)