All is well here, although only because I’ve given up, in the most relaxed way possible. I’m still trying to get everything done by the 20th, but I understand that’s tomorrow and that I live in a world of dreams. Even if I don’t totally finish, I’ll be close enough that the last few days of the holidays won’t be an enraged blur of wrapping paper and baking. The gingerbread was baked last night, dinner for tonight is almost made, and it’s a simple one, so it’s bubbling on the stove, making the house smell like I’m ready, even if I’m not. A little while ago I got this huge urge to vacuum, and then realized that only a fool vacuums *before* a two year old comes to your house for dinner. I’ll clean up the crumbs he leaves behind tomorrow. It was always a pipe dream to have the knitting done by the 20th – I haven’t thought I would make that for a while… but I stand by my idea that I’ll be knitting for me on Christmas Day, with a cup of eggnog and the tree twinkling next to me. I don’t have that much to knit really (sorry, let me just stop laughing enough to type.) No, really – it’s not that bad. A pair of Cloisonée mittens remain to be finished…
and I’d forgotten how much I love this pattern. Fast, fun, and easy to make the right colours for anyone – I hunted on Ravelry for just the right thing for a while before I realized that I’d already come up with it. (You know you’re not thinking when Rav suggests a pattern you’ve written.) After that there’s one more pair of mittens (two, if the sun shines) another pair of fingerless mitts, and one (two if the sun shines) hats. I’m still in the running. This afternoon I’ll finish the cooking, work for a little longer, and then if all goes well, I’ll have an hour to knit before the hordes descend. (Did I mention I’m looking forward to the hordes?) I was going to clean, but then I remembered I just don’t give a sh*t. I’d rather this was the first year I didn’t give anyone a gift still on the needles.
What’s Luis hanging today?
La luz de navidad. The Christmas light. (Edited to fix my crappy Spanish spelling. Big surprise.)
I admit, I think of this as the “Christmas bulb” but Christmas light is close enough. I was knitting it, and thinking that really, Lou probably wouldn’t know what it was, since all the strings of lights now are little LED things that look nothing like this, which is so much better for the environment, and so much worse for nostalgia. Still, when I think of a the strings of lights you hand on a tree (and despite not having had anything that looks like this for years) this seems just right. I used this pattern, and didn’t change a thing, but for the gauge. (The pattern called for worsted and 3.25mm needles, and I switched to fingering and 2.25mm needles to make it small enough.) I imagine that when Lou’s old enough to really look at these, he’ll think of this the way that he will dial phones with an attached cord. If I were a better woman, I’d knit a long string of these for my tree.
Gifts for knitters, Day 19
Today’s gift for knitters, is project bags. I know, I know, yesterday I did bags for knitters, but these are project bags, not knitting bags. These go inside the knitting bag. (I know. I told you we had a bag thing.)
I love these box bags from Splityarn with a passion. There’s big ones, and smaller ones, and they squish enough to fit in my bag when I travel or go places, but they’re also tidy enough (and have a handle on the end) so that I can take it as is. Lots of other great people make box bags too (look! Polkadots! This ones a call box! Sharknado! Hedgehogs!) Ones you can colour co-ordinate to your other stuff!) and they’re fabulous (and they stack, like bricks so that the place your knitter is keeping projects is very tidy indeed. (Yes, having more than one project on the go is normal, as a matter of fact, it’s a pretty good idea.) If you’re as crafty as your knitter, there’s a great tutorial on how to make a box bag here.
If your knitter isn’t that square (see what I did there?) then you can go the more traditional project bag route. There’s a million of them, and they’re all good – there’s so many in fact that there’s no reason that you can’t co-ordinate it to fit in with your knitters other interests. Sheep? Coffee? Tardis? Do they wanna put a bird on it? Maybe chickens? Creepy stuff? The Enterprise? Crafty Pirates? Daleks? (As an aside, and this fits in with yesterday too. If your knitter has a thing for the Doctor, maybe you wanna go nuts and pre-order this.) If your knitter likes something, you can find a bag that goes with it. Go to Etsy, and modify this search with something your knitter likes.