Gifts! Gifts!

First gift unveiling:

After swearing off holiday knitting, I of course caved in and started projects nonetheless. So far, I've been good about sticking to smaller projects and not overextending myself, and I'm making good times. I have 2 more projects to knit, and one is about 25% done, and the other is yet to be started, but I have until at least December 26 for both of them, so I should be in good shape. I need to do a few more of these flower pins too, but those don't take very long at all.

Here's some of the things I have given away so far this year.

First up, to my female friends at the solstice party in Pittsburgh this weekend, random flower brooches. Last year I did freeform felted brooches for my work friends. This year, I decided to skip the felting and make some different types, embellished with beads:

1. Berocco Denim Silk in Carob with vintage button and modern glass beads. Pattern from headhuggers, modified to make petals longer. While I like the flower this made, there were *tons* of ends to weave in. And Denim Silk is not a fun yarn to weave in ends on.


2. Kool-Aid dyed Lion Fisherman wool that I traded for on livejournal. Decorated with modern glass beads (that you really can't see in the photo. Free form shortrow strip, wrapped around to form flower.


3. Cascade 220, decorated with vintage glass beads. This was made from the rose pattern on Nicky Epstein's pillow from the last Vogue Knitting. It doesn't look anything like the photo to me at all. I think the sewing up instructions may have been lacking in that pattern, though it's possible I misread the instructions for flipping over the needle in the middle of the row.


4. Recycled wool from ebay. Freeform shortrow strip with vintage button and modern glass beads.


5. Debbie Bliss Soho. Icord sewn into loops and decorated with plastic vintage shank button.

Those two shortrow flowers looked like this before being wrapped up and sewn into flower shapes:



Weird, huh? I got the idea for these after seeing my friend Lisa wrap up the crocheted ruffle scarf she was working on at Stitch n' Bitch. Kismet.


And for the work girls, I made journal covers, aka, "this book has it's own sweater!"

These were pretty much made up out of my head. I just did 2x2 rib (1x1 for the larger gauge one) for a couple of inches, then stockinette (or garter for the color change one) for the width of the journal open, then the ribbing on the other end again. I sewed the ribbing down on either end to make a shallow pocket, and stretched the covers over the journals. Voila!

1. This is a huge gauge. Noro Kureyon, doubled with a variety of yarns (cascade 220,kool aid dye and recycled wool from above.


2. This garter stitch with random color changes is kind of becoming my trademark. This is in Berocco Denim Silk in 3 colors, a synthetic Berocco ribbon yarn, some chenille I bought on ebay a long time ago, and another synthetic ribbon yarn I had in my stash.


3. Debbie Bliss Soho, with a random purl row thrown in every so often with a weird mohair I traded for a while back thrown into the mix.

So far, the gifts have been well-received. I just hope I can get the rest finished up, but with two Stitch n' Bitch meetings this week, not to mention having spent 4 hours knitting at Mojoe last night, I think I'll be able to get them all done, and maybe even finish my Shinano vest to wear to a holiday party. I'm over halfway done with the front of it, so I should be good!