Randomly on a Wednesday

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1. I am feeling much better. This has only left me extremely behind schedule, which  is sort of a shame, because if I was ridiculously, hopelessly behind I could give up.  Instead, I haplessly still believe it can be done.

2. The kid next door told me a Christmas Joke.

Why are Christmas Trees like bad knitters?
They both drop their needles.

3. I finished the next to last pair of socks on the list. 

4. That also makes hope spring up within me.  All I have left is some other stuff. Like a few sweaters.

5. It will be fine.

6.  I’ve thought this through and the only way to get back on schedule is to clone myself.  I’m sure the first one would be hard, but once I got it down I could create an army of Stephanies.  One could knit all day (I vote for me) and the other Stephanies could do all those things I’ve always wanted to get done, like polish the silver – or do something with the Martha Stewart cleaning checklists that isn’t just looking at them online and laughing and laughing and laughing.   

Gifts for knitters 11

When it comes to jewelry, I’m discriminating, I only like a little of it, and what I do like? It tends to be both knitty and useful.  Have a look here, and see if your knitter might like some of this. Try to remember too, that if your knitter hates earings? She or he is not going to be down with it just because you put a ball of yarn on it. Get me?

The Elegant Knitter has some beautiful things. Sheep and alpaca earrings for starters. (If I wore earrings, I would consider those.)
HomeStudio has really, really great pendants that aren’t at all blingy and would totally suit a guy knitter or… well. Me.
I quite like this ring, kitted out with polymer clay stockinette.
I own a needle gauge necklace like this one that I wear fairly often. (Mine’s not silver though, but I love the idea of a necklace that looks like abstract art to non-knitters, and is instantly recognizable as a gauge amongst us.) 
There’s the Ablet. (Very clever row counting braclet.)
Shawl pins? If your knitter wears shawls or lace scarves, look no further than these beautiful ones from Romi.
This beautiful collection of jewelry made from polymer clay? I think it’s actually quite elegant.
Schoolhouse press has a sterling silver ball of yarn. 
And finally, Akerworks makes these really, really great magnetic pendants for needleworkers. If you wear it while knitting, you can stick a whack of pins there for blocking, your darning needle while sewing up… I’ve got one, and it’s actually both beautiful and handy. My favourite combination.

If your knitter is more the do it yourself type? Consider one of these nifty kits from Laura Nelkin. Even if your knitter isn’t the type to wear one? They might have a ton of fun making one to give away. 
If you think they really might like to give it a go? How about a book.
Elements of Style: Knit & Crochet Jewelry with Wire, Fiber, Felt & Beads

Good hunting.

44 thoughts on “Randomly on a Wednesday”

  1. Thank you for all your gift suggestions, and I’m glad you’re feeling better. I have much the same reaction to the things Martha suggests!

  4. So glad to know that you are feeling better! Thank you for the wonderful gift suggestions you are providing for people who need help figuring out what to buy us knitters. But I wonder……..are you ever gifted with any of the items you suggest? Does Joe read your blog and find out what to buy you?

  5. I’m glad you’re feeling better! Cloning sounds like a solution I could use. Let me know if you figure out how to accomplish it. 🙂 I’ll second the ablet counter bracelet. I love mine! All my other counting tools click or beep and scare one of my dogs silly. LOL Ablets are totally quiet!!! A plus as far as shih tzu Angus is concerned.

  6. My Christmas secret weapon is a circular sock knitting machine–3 pair of ginormous (size 13 men’s) socks knit in 1 afternoon. Perfect for plain vanilla socks that all the pizazz comes from the yarn. I urge you to consider one for when you GOTTA churn those socks out. Glad you are feeling better and I LOVE to laugh at Martha!

  7. Is it sad that by the time I finished reading this, I had already gone off and bought two of those Scrabble tile pendants for myself?
    Forget Christmas, I’m just going to shop for myself from now on!

  8. #6 had me laughing out loud. And just so everyone knows, I bought that polymer clay knit ring, immediately, for myself. Me-rry Christmas.

  9. I really liked the year you suggested the squirrel feet earrings. (sarcasm font! those were horrible!) Love the book suggestions though. Have shared em with family and I think it’ll be a good Christmas for me too!

  10. Good to hear that you’re feeling better! Look at it this way – there are 2 weeks until Christmas. I’ve seen, via this blog, you knit a sweater in under a week. Time to power through – and hopefully you only have two sweaters to knit, otherwise, I suggest a Plan B….
    …so what’s Plan B?

  12. I am very pleased to hear that you are feeling better. I know I couldn’t manage two sweaters before Christmas – no matter what the size.
    I am very amused that your next door neighbour child can tell you a knitting joke, A+ to them! (and I like that it was good enough for you to relay to us).

  13. Did you ever see the movie “Multiplicity,” where the guy cloned himself, and then the clones got cloned, and each copy got stupider and stupider? I’m glad you’ve decided to give the knitting duties to the original Stephanie. It doesn’t take many brains to clean house. (ps If you want to see the movie, it’s truly terrible, but Michael Keaton is cute enough to make it worthwhile.)

  14. If you figure out the cloning thing, you’ll let us know, right? I mean, think of all the good we could do with another set of hours in the day!
    And all the wine we could drink!

  16. I’m glad you’re feeling better! And I LOVE the links you provide us for holiday shopping. I just ordered 4 pendants and chains from Home Studio (one is for me!) Merry Christmas, Steph…I hope you get all your knitting done. 🙂

  18. I keep wondering what this “schedule” you speak of is all about. I mean, I’ve read the blog and I know what you do…but I just can’t seem to keep to any sort of schedule. I suppose having a small child does that, especially when he shares his icky sickies. Thankfully, I planned ahead and got some presents taken care of during the summer…and it will all be well if I remember to pack them for our trip back to Wisconsin. ::sigh::

  20. Great news that you are feeling better. Not so great news about being behind on you Christmas knitting schedule. I love it that your neighbour boy tells you knitting jokes. And thanks for the daily gift suggestions. Much appreciated!

  21. I’m glad to hear you’re back up from under the crud. It always puts a damper on getting things done. As for cloning, DON’T! Haven’t you ever ready Calvin and Hobbes? Do you not recall the disaster that cloning is? Are you not an intelligent, strong willed, and addicted knitter? Why wouldn’t your clones be too? Think of all the time you’d waste arguing with yourself as to who gets to knit and who gets to scrub toilets.

  22. This jewelry is just gorgeous. It’s understated, but still has a bit of whimsy and the feeling of a private joke. I’m glad you’re feeling better, good luck getting everything done!

  23. Those Martha Stewart cleaning checklists make me laugh and laugh too. There are some cleaning jobs on them I’m sure I have never done before.
    I’m glad you’re feeling better; it’s never good to be sick, but being sick at a time when we are expecting so much from ourselves is so frustrating. Enjoy your sweaters! I know you’ll knit lots of love into them.

  25. I’m really enjoying the gift suggestions, and I loved the neighbour kid’s joke.
    I want a yarn-cutter pendant AND the needle gauge pendant and I want a Jordana Paige Satchel that isn’t pink but the website only shows it in pink. Breast Cancer awareness notwithstanding, I am really really not a person who wears, carries, or uses anything pink.
    However, since there is no such thing here as a LYS, and since my kids do not really give a hoot what I want for Christmas, my guess is that it will be “nothing”, as usual; and I will be picking up my own Christmas “gifts” for me, myself and I, after New Year some time.

  26. How do you NOT get carpel tunnel with all this knitting??? Sore wrists? No? I am an obsessive compulsive knitter who has to knit every single day, and some days I knit for several hours. But it leaves me sore. I wonder if this is because I knit the continental way, which has a lot of wrist action and is really, really fast….

  27. I suppose it’s better to be sick now than in 2 weeks when time starts disappearing even faster. I’m sure it’s part of what Einstein was trying to explain mathematically.
    Same here with Martha’s lists, Flylady’s lists…
    I resisted the urge to buy myself any of the gift items (unemployed for the 3rd time in 6 years), but could not resist buying the pattern for Pretty Thing after seeing the picture of yours. Since I already have suitable yarn and can make one or more gifts for the $5.00 investment, I don’t feel even slightly guilty.

  28. Glad you are feeling better! I am so glad to know that I am not the only one who laughs and laughs and laughs at the Martha Stewart cleaning lists!!!! Knit on, girl!

  29. Stephanie, remember the sock of the month? I was sure you were knitting those for presents for the holidays. Or did you forget about them? They were so beautiful!

  32. I have to tweet that joke. I’ll give you full credit. 😀
    Also, sorry for sounding like a crotchety old man, do you have any gift suggestions for us male knitters?

  34. Oh, let’s face it: “Martha Stewart” is a figment of her own imagination. If she didn’t have a small army of paid peons, she’d never be able to “accomplish” even a quarter of the things she advocates for “gracious living.”
    Anyway, I’m surprised the jewelry ideas didn’t include a tiara and a jeweled breastplate. ‘Cuz you’d totally rock either or both.
    Still, despite your resemblance to Wonder Woman, I hear that avalanche approaching. . .Joe, you’d better get started on one of those sweaters!

  35. Hello,
    Glad you are feeling better. The 2 sweaters need to be renegotiated. Maybe one recipient really needs the matching hat now and the sweater in January. Box of chocolates now and sweater by Valentines Day? Think of what you can switch out. I’ve had Christmases like this. One year there was lots of Sees candy given, hand knits finished by the respective Birthdays.
    Good luck,
    Julie in San Diego

  36. Hi Stephanie:
    I’m glad you’re better.
    How about creating gift certificates for the presents that you haven’t started yet? You can then give the certificates but in the meantime start them and deliver them after Christmas when they are done.
    PS. Next time feeling a cold coming on try putting olive leaf extract drops in your water – lots of them. Umcka is good as well. In France I discovered Boiron’s Stodal granules. (Sorry not sure of the spelling at the moment.) Then there’s echinacea.
    Happy Holidays.

  37. My Christmas present to myself is a lovely chatelaine necklace, made by a Raveler. It will have 5 fobs hanging down, to hold a small measuring tape, folding scissors or cutting pendant, the dropped stitch picker upper crochet hook, the chibi I am hoping to also get for Christmas. Now I am thinking that the magnetic pendant you show would be a nice 5th item.

  38. Man, if they put the kitchener stitch on the back of one of those scrabble pendants I would totally snap it up! I’d get one for every member of my knitting group. We are always googling the stitch at the pub. I have the knitpicks dog tags but you can’t really wear those as pretty jewelry.

  39. I highly recommend the Ablet bracelets for counting! I have one and gave one as a gift last year, and they are great!!! Looks like jewelry so the non-knitters don’t even know what’s going on there. Which is helpful because sometimes I forget and leave it on when I am out in the muggle world. The DPN behind the ear gets picked up on immediately, but the ablet … very stealth.

  40. I told my 9 year old son the joke and he loved it. So much that he wrote it down, took it to school and put it in their joke box! One random joke is picked each day and he is looking forward to hearing his on the loudspeaker.

  41. THANK YOU! Again Stephanie, I can’t thank you enough for the mentions both this Christmas and Last year.
    Your endorsement means so much.
    Just fyi, if you don’t already own one, go to my site and pick one out as my thank you gift to you.
    Yarn Harlot followers, get 10% off with coupon code HAPPYHOLIDAYZ
    Glad you are feeling better.
    Regards,
    Sharon Coleman
    CEO (Chief Everything Officer)Ablet, llc

  44. ummm, stephanie goes to the mall and we never hear again. i’m concerned….anyone else besides me and Carol worried? It’s Sunday morning and nothing….

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