happy chrimbo

Hope you all had a good one! A bit late with my festive wishes, sorry. It's been a bit chaotic round here lately, mostly due to a lot of stupidly last minute christmas knitting. At least now most gifts have been given I can provide photographic evidence for this.


This shawl is another Aestlight. It's for my sister in law who lives in a mightily cold part of Cumbria and recently commented that she didn't have a scarf. Horrors! So I made this, because I already have one and knew it would be a useful neckwarming device. It's also a pretty speedy knit with that big garter stitch section.

The yarn is Posh Yarn Lucia, which has been lurking in my stash for ages, ever since I won it in a competition on Ravelry. It's a luxuriously soft merino/cashmere blend, but at 393m per skein a little low on yardage for a decent sized shawl. With this pattern it's very easy to switch colours for the edging if you run out of yarn. So that's what I did - I went for a King Cole Baby Alpaca DK edging in a solid blue-green shade ('Lichen') which almost perfectly matches one of the shades of the semi-solid sock yarn. Being very slightly heavier at the edge makes the shawl hang quite well I think, although the Posh Yarn was quite fat for sock yarn so there's surprisingly little weight difference. The King Cole was really amazingly nice. I have already made tonnes of things out of their budget merino, which is brilliant stuff. The baby alpaca is totally different and much more luxurious, so very impressive that they've got it so right here too, with the pretty spearmint colour and irresistable softness. *Rubs crystal ball* I can see more of this yarn in my future!

For sis#1 I made these simple stocking stitch toe up socks. She loves pink as much as I generally dislike it. You go into her kitchen to make yourself a cup of tea and fill up a pink kettle against a pink wall from a pink tap as pink-clad children play with pink toys on a pink floor. It's like sensory deprivation, you can't see the edges of things, and when you leave the house everything looks a bit greener than it should do because you have worn out all the pink-specific neurones in your retinas. (Cara - you would probably love my sister's house!)

So I thought she would appreciate this pink and green stripy yarn. Even I quite like pink when teamed with green, it's a classic combination, like gin and tonic or pop-tarts and crack cocaine. This is from my neverending skein of Green Eyed Monsters sock. It's the fourth project I have made from one skein. Seriously - it's like the magic porridge pot in yarn form! When I bought this skein, the lovely Kate from GEM said it was slight seconds and if I still wanted it she would wind me some extra to compensate for the knots. I think she may have been a little overgenerous, by about the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The best thing is, THERE IS STILL SOME LEFT! I might start a sock yarn cosy for my house.
Anyway, I tried to use up some scrap yarn christmas things up a bit with some dark green leftover regia for the toes, heels and cuffs. I wasn't sure about it at all to start with but I think the end result is actually quite festive. They ended up a tad on the large size, I think 62 stitches around is a bit much for plain stocking stitch on my sis's wee feet, but they might shrink a little bit in the wash, or I guess they could be bedsocks. Sis looked pleased anyway.

I finished my other sis's present on Christmas Eve, and I'm afraid I didn't manage to get a photo. So imagine a chunky hat made out of this lovely Misti Alpaca yarn, a bit like this one but with a stupidly large and fluffy pompom on top instead of a crochet flower. I was inspired by Vikki H's lovely Misti bobble hat and basically shamelessly copied it. It's a great quick-but-luxurious one skein project, and other sis was also pleased with her prezzie.

There are still a couple of things left under the tree that I rubbishly failed to finish in time to give to the correct people before they disappeared for the festive season, so the christmas present round up will be completed at a later date...