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I can’t post my family Christmas gifts because I believe some of my family members follow this blog. I’ll share those after Christmas.

What I can share are these:

The pattern is Six Pointed Star Christmas Ornament.

I have 12 coworkers and I’m making 12 white and 24 red so that everyone gets 1 white one and 2 red ones. I think I might be a bit insane thinking I can get them all done on time.

I love giving my fellow workers handmade gifts. I hope they understand that I thought of them way more while I made the thing than if I just went out a bought something. I’ve been lucky that anyone I’ve ever knit something has been grateful – at least to my face anyway.

Knitting has been a skill shared along the female line of my family for many generations. I’m sad that I think it’s going to stop with me. My daughter and my oldest don’t really seem interested or they don’t stay engaged long enough. Maybe later in life they’ll change their minds. For me it goes far beyond a hat, a sweater or a pair of mittens. Knitting has helped me heal from grief and cope with anxiety and depression. It’s like a good friend who always makes me feel safe and comfortable. I wish I could have shared this with my children.

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So I’m reasonable sure that only scammers and spammers come here anymore, but I want to breathe a bit of life back into this website. How much depends on me and what I think I can handle. My free time is little and precious but I do miss sharing my knitting adventures.

And I have been knitting during COVID. Maybe not a lot but things were made.

Like this sweater.

The other two items I can’t show because they are for Christmas.

On my roster of things to make are a baby blanket (#6), a shawl and a cable sweater.

It has been a roller coaster ride the last 18+ months. I’m ready to push forward, open my eyes and take a deep breath.

Baby Blankets

The second baby blanket is done! Both blankets are going to be delivered this week and I can’t wait give them to my work friends. I like the colourway better then the previous blanket, but like I said before the next baby blanket will be solid. I think it does a better job of showing off the cables.

Winter this year has been a strange mix of large dumps of snow followed by unseasonably warm temperatures. Sadly the snow keeps melting away making it not much of a winter. Despite this I am in a hygge kind of mood. I’ve been wearing all my soft, warm sweaters, wrapping myself up in a blanket while drinking tea and hot chocolate. In the spirit of hygge I’ve decided to knit myself a fair isle yoke sweater.

The pattern is picked out and the yarn has been ordered. More to come on both next week.

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I’ve knit so many baby blankets for co-workers over the years and I never tire of it. I do it to celebrate the new baby and do something nice for my work buddy, but I also do as a way of continual healing.

I’ve lost two babies, one still birth at 5 months and one infant at 2 weeks old. Every blanket I knit reminds me that more often than not a pregnancy ends with joy, love and a beautiful baby. It helps me deal with my losses.

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The first of the two baby blankets I’m knitting is done! Both blankets are for co-workers.

As much as I love the softness of Bernat’s Baby Blanket yarn I’m not so happy with the way it knits up when doing the Shadow Cable pattern. The pooling is kinda of weird looking. I think the colour variations mixed with the texture doesn’t really work and yet I’ve knit a few blankets using this type of colourway. The second blanket also uses a similar colourway although it’s more subtle. If I make this blanket in the future I’m going to stick to a solid colour.

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Happy New Year all!

This post is a few days late and isn’t knitting related, but I wanted post to say that I’m excited for a fresh beginning. I’m not making any resolutions this year, but I will be striving to live a better life. More self care, strengthening relationships and making time to more for the things I love.

My life has been hijacked by my anxiety and depression for years – making me afraid to live my life and making excuses that keep me from developing. It’s time to break old habits and live a better life. I won’t be perfect but I hope I can feel proud for at least trying.

Post to come next week and happy knitting!

Louise

Projects

Last week I wrote about how unhappy I was with the crummy sewing job I did on the liners. So I decided to hand sew them by back stitching. The result was much better although it was time consuming.

By the time I got to this stage in the game I was feeling pretty proud of myself until I tried the mitts on. Now these are for my daughter who has thinner hands than me, but even for her the fingers felt a little snug. I’m not sure why this happened because initial fittings were fine. The fingers felt good. Whatever happened, error on my part or knitting gremlins, I had to figure out something.

I went from fingers in the mitts to no fingers.

Just as in life, knitting doesn’t always go the way you thought. Hopefully everything turns out though.

Overall I’m happy with the final project. A few things of note for the next pair of lined, flap mittens I make:

  • While still knitting with a tighter gauge make the mitts a little big to accommodate for the liner
  • Make the liner pattern with a larger seam allowance – half an inch
  • Add stitches if needed to create larger fingers or don’t make fingers at all

Merry Christmas, happy knitting and I’ll see you next year!

Projects

The steps were pretty easy to create the mitten liners, however my gut told me that there should be more of a seam allowance. My thought being you can trim the excess fabric after sewing. But the video says you don’t need much seam allowance. I should have listened to my gut.

Paper pattern traced and 4 layers of fleece are ready to be cut

So I use my paper pattern and traced it onto layers of fleece – leftover from a Halloween costume.

Time to sew

This next step I was dreading. The sew machine and I are not friends We are not on speaking terms and every time I try to use the thing bad things happen. This wouldn’t be an exception.

It’s hard to see the terrible sewing job, but it’s there

So the seams were so small that the fabric kept bunching up or I would miss a section and have to sew back over it. I swore, swore a lot and maybe even cried a little. These crummy liners took a hour and half to sew.

I wasn’t happy with them and decided to try something else which I’ll tell you about next week.

Projects

One thing I find annoying about making mittens is that once the weather gets below a certain temperature they don’t keep your hands warm anymore. The best fix for this is a fleece liner. Also using smaller needles then the suggested ones and adjusting your gauge helps. The tighter stitches mean less cold can get through.

I did both for these mitts. I found this video on YouTube that was quite helpful.

Pattern of bottom part of mitt
Pattern of upper part of mitt

More of the mitten adventure to come next week…

Projects

I’ve been away for months and I haven’t been knitting. It’s sad and makes me feel empty. I haven’t been feeding my passions and working a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I love my new company but working full time again, plus maintaining a side gig takes up all my time and energy.

Recently I’ve started to slowly get back to my knitting partly because everyone in the house needs new mittens. I meant to make my youngest daughter mittens with flaps last winter. These mitts are perfect for both my girls since they have to take a city bus to school. They can easily get their bus card out of their backpacks and not have to take off their mitts to do it.

I don’t have a pattern for these mitts. I’ve been making them up as I go using measurements I took from Gwyn. I’ve messed up the flap twice now, but I think the third time will work. In the photo I’ve folded the bottom of the flap to the length it should be – I made it a good inch too long.

My intent is to line these with leftover fleece from Gwyn’s Halloween costume. I have a ton of magenta fleece left and I think this will be a good way to use it up.

I can’t make promises of keeping my sad, lagging blog up to date, but will make better efforts to post something every month.

Take care my friends and happy knitting!