Hope you had some Screech on hand to ease your way through that one!

Mmmmm! Cashmere!

I hate computer elves. Very nasty.

I hate computer elves. Very nasty.

Thank you for including that last little, but important, point about cashmere. I'll be leaving this post open at home for hubby to see. (Not that he doesn't know the cashmere tip, but a visual reminder never hurts.)

I spy a pair of Fluevog Cherish boots on someone!

Did you consider turning the too-small-hips-ribbing into a neck for top-down raglan sweater?

I hate that you had to frog, but I *love* the boots in the picture!

Pro-tip: Qiviut can replace cashmere.

So the chunky sweater couldn't have _become_ top down, I take it. Sorry. It'll go fast now.

Another approach is to create a "favourites" list on etsy and send the link to said non-knitter. It's not romantic, but effective. :)

Condolences on the loss of the post, I feel your pain. Also on the lost knitting time while frogging, again, I feel your pain. The upside is that Baileys is appropriate at any time of day during December.

at least you were brave enough to do mathmatics. How sad would you have been when 10 cm had become 40 and you could delude yourself no longer? Or, would it have been when you were done and realized you only used on skein of yarn?

Nice yarn suggestions.

Sorry about the frog. Great piece on yarn buying, though.

Draft your posts in Word and turn on AutoSave. Or get a Mac with the newest OS that does that for all your programs. Autosave is a miracle. Like computer dies on page 8 of a 10 page paper miracle.

"A skein of cashmere has seldom done a relationship damage." Words to live by!

have been absolutely loving your 'spot on' what to get a knitter series. The way you write always makes me chuckle as you seem to have this humor about you. Thanks for my smile today (again) :)

I thought that said "Ripped back with beer support". That might have been even better than peer support.

And for the cash-strapped gift-giver, there's always sock yarn. (Pro tip: Make sure to ask the yarn shop lady/gentleman how much yarn is needed to make a pair of socks. Check your knitters stash/sock drawer for color/fiber preferences).

Condolences re having to rip your sweater. Last night I ripped and re-knitted 9 rows of 109 sts, which comprised the back of a somewhat intricate cabled adult sweater. Twice. Because 45 years of knitting have not been enough to learn that cables will kick your arse if you don't pay attention. A wise knitting guru once wrote in one of her books - we are all idiots sometime. Remember that? 2008, I believe.

My favorite gift buying tip with Ravelry is to buy patterns from the queue! The non-knitter will probably need help from a good knitter friend. But that is a terribly wonderful gift.

New favorite quote: A skein of cashmere has seldom done a relationship damage.

I agree with the "beer" support of frogging.. :)

The knitter for whom the gift is being contemplated could always do what my ex-spouse used to do. He's an engineer into techie things about which I knew little: ham radio, stereo equipment (this was a while ago), bleeding edge computer stuff. Before every gift-giving holiday he would hand me a list of stuff with the name, brand, model number, price, and store listed. I would walk into the store, hand the salesperson the piece of paper and say "I want x". He would say, "Well, you really should get y". Me: "No, I really want x." It would go on like this for a while and finally I would walk out with exactly what was on my list. It was the only way to give a gift that would be actually appreciated. In 16 years of marriage I only ever gave him one successful gift that was not on the list and that was after months of research that I never want to go through again for a gift. I was expected to get everything on the list, but the putative knitter's gift-giver could choose a couple of things from a list of many things, thus preserving a fig leaf of surprise.

A skein of cashmere, indeed. I think such a gift would only strengthen and solidify many relationships.

I love that PPPS. Heck, I was gushing over a cashmere sweater in Costco the other day. Pure deliciousness!

I love the last line. I think I shall e-mail this post to my husband right now!

Dear Loved Ones:
Listen to Stephanie about Sneakiness! I love sneakiness! Christmas Espionage for the win!

"PPPS. A skein of cashmere has seldom done a relationship damage."

Never was a greater truth written. I may post that on the fridge....

Felt like I was reading a cable, there - sort of a combination of commications of ago meets the newfangled blogs of the interwebs. Words like "cashmere" sound so lovely. So do words like "qiviut" & "Cracksilk Haze".

my stupid computer does that too! I think a man programmed it.

I love the guys that come on ravelry this time of year with names like "justthehusband", then ask for suggestions of what to buy their wives.

I'm with the write the post offline first brigade. Too many lost posts and torn-out hair to do otherwise nowadays.

You're right. You can't go wrong with cashmere in the right colour.

Love the ppps! A skein of cashmere, yes, please!

Yes! Love those Fluevogs...the yarn looks nice too

I almost read that "Sweater ripped with Beer support." Much more likely in my case.

I almost read that "Sweater ripped with Beer support" also. Must have been wishful thinking.

Yes, I hate the fact that a much-loved sweater can get worn and slightly ratty. I'm rationing the wearing of my favorite red sweater with cables to Christmas-themed events. That should lenghten the life of the thing....

Correction: cashmere as a gift will certainly change a relationship...for the better!

Hi Steph, thank's for all the great gift ideas from non-knitters to knitter family members. I've been forwarding those to my husband. :)

and....thanks for being the bright spot in my work day every day.....

Merry Christmas and good luck on the sweater!

Ha! Yay for extra sneakiness points! Love it! And...what, only ONE skein of cashmere? ;)

LOVE this guide and wish it would do my spouse good. The one time I suggested #2 he looked horrified, as if I had asked him to pick up tampons at the jock store. Irritated the tar out of me. You do not get cooties at the yarn shop. If I'm capable of googling "gifts for photographers" to indulge his hobby, why can't he do the same for me? Harumph!

It's OK--he's a good guy. And this year I'm taking care of the situation myself. I told him I wanted a sweater's worth of Brooklyn Tweed Loft and that I would take care of it myself, thank you very much. Merry Christmas to me!

Sorry about your sweater, Steph!

Thankfully, this is one task my Non-Knitter-Gift-Buyer never has a problem with. Being that we live in different countries, his sleuthing around my house isn't an option - but he has his own Rav account and knows how to use the site. He has walked into yarn stores near where he lives and has bought wonderful things - for my birthday I got sock yarn with silk in it ... SILK I SAY. He won massive points for that one!

"Family computer"?? Does not compute...

That's like "family underwear" or "family toothbrush".

LOL... I may have too many computers.

To be honest I'm not comfortable with non-knitters buying yarn for me. There's a lot of variables to consider and they're not familiar with my stash.

I would prefer a gift certificate in that case.

computers and gauge are both harsh, harsh masters; they giveth, and they taketh away. I hope you've taken some time to pet some cashmere today.

So true about the cashmere. Pretty much goes for silk, too.

I often read your posts to my husband....especially the ones here in December! My husband says that he is 95% sure that your computer has a power supply problem.

Hope my husband sees the PPPS about cashmere!

Dear Stephanie,

Socks and mittens and hats make wonderful Christmas gifts. Sweaters, especially sweaters begun the second week in December - problematical.

Lots of love from someone who will be lucky to finish both socks in time for Christmas.

Another sneaky tip: buy a really nice sock yarn in your favorite color then, when the knitter opens the present, sigh dramatically about wanting a pair of hand knit socks. In your favorite color. For Christmas. Next year.

My son and his wife did this last year. And yeah, I'm a sucker. They're both getting socks this year. Knit from my gift from last year. At least I'll know they like the colors.

Must be sunspot activity or something, my computer cranky today too. As in, when I turned it on, nothing happened. NOthing. Spent about 5 hours, now when I turn it on, it starts. Big improvement, not how I'd planned to spend my morning. BTW, I finally decided to create a Twitter account so I could follow your tweets, on my mobile. Twitter won't validate my mobile. Sort of defeats the purpose. I can't decide if I should go back to bed, or have a shot of dark rum. Maybe both.

Love it. #2 read out loud to hubby, who knows exactly whom to ask at exactly which shop (but we didn't mention that to each other out loud).

I just returned home from a day of golf. No food, now just alcohol. Disclaimer given.
My hubby and I just talked about cashmere last night. If I were a betting gal, I'd say it was zero percent chance of cashmere or ANY yarn for Christmas. Just like jewelry. Should I trade him in after 25 years?
Maybe better hints?

Bridget

I love all your Christmas posts. Any possibility you could come up with a list of holiday knitting for those of us who will be driving long distances this year? I'm looking forward to at least 24 hours of car travel this Christmas: I need lots of ideas.

thanks so much for your suggestions yesterday - I found out that I have a set of blocking wires on their way to me. My partner went thru your criteria and decided that I knit lace and there has been lace pinned to the bed.

thanks again

Probably the words 'starting a sweater without swatching' and 'party' in the same sentence is not a good combination.

Totally agree about the cashmere!

Masterly save.

The thing about the cashmere ... truer words never spoken!! :-)

PPPPS Same Same Silk

I really appreciate and enjoy the daily posts, especially considering how valuable your time is with all that Christmas knitting. I lovethe suggested totes, eventhough it appears that i have a stash of those as well; but none of them have pockets and some even have the dreaded velcro.

Several years ago my husband gave me 7 skeins of cashmere for Christmas. Not only did it do our relationship no harm, we will celebrate our 40th anniversary next year. I credit the cashmere (among other things).

My husband gave me two beautiful skeins of cashmere yarn a few years ago. He couldn't believe I wanted yarn. I said, Honey, it's cashmere, and I'd never buy it for myself, but if YOU buy it for me, it's a gift! My daughter steered him to the yarn in the LYS and helped him pick a color. I knit myself a beautiful cowl.

Hate to be a naysayer, but if my spouse bought me cashmere he'd be in BIG trouble -- I'm allergic. However, a little luxury silk or cotton would win him BIG points!

I may have left this post open for THAT person I live with. Yes, there was laughter.

Loving your daily posts. What a great knitter's Christmas gift!

Besides silk and qiviut, alpaca is often an acceptable substitute for cashmere.

However, a non-knitter needs to seek professional help from the LYS before buying yarn containing angora. It may be as soft as cashmere, but a poor-quality angora yarn will shed worse than a herd of Persian cats. 'Nuff said.

Surely you aren't leaving out sock yarn? If your knitter knits socks, nothing could be simpler. Little need to worry about sizing, and conveniently is usually available such that one skein will be sufficient!

(It's taken many years, but I finally convinced my mother to go with sock or laceweight yarn so I can actually knit something instead of having stray skeins of worsted lying around.)

LOVE this one!! :)

I love those boots. I saw in the comments that they are John Fluevog Cherish, but I they aren't for sale anymore, as far as I can tell. Everyone is out of them. Too bad!!

Thank you for a much needed laugh! Not that I find other people's misfortunes entertaining...and yet I do, oddly. Must go away and muse on being a bad person now.

Steph, I cannot thank you enough for the whole gift for knitters thing. You truely are brilliant, too late for my DH this yr, but I will just guide him to your blog for any future gifts. May your needles knit into warp speed for you today:)

Knitting a gansey at 4:00 a.m. while listening to BBC4 on my laptop, has convinced me that the sweep second hand moves faster in December. All of a sudden, 30 minutes has past that seemed only like 5 minutes, when I really need time to slow down and for me to knit at warp speed.

Am loving the 'Gift Guide for Non-Knitters'. Classic! Thanks for sharing.

My husband solved the give yarn problem with gift certificates. (for Romni Wool-Woo hoo)

I discovered good possibilities of getting more of a particular colour of yarn I bought in the correct dye lot no less (not enough of it available originally, decided I would use it with another colour) and when I mentioned it to my husband he asked "are you going to use it?' and I replied "no I just really like the colour and I just want to look at it". You can file that one under what you'd really like to reply to non knitter questions.

I am sending today's gift ideas to my husband. He seems to think it is okay to tell the family that no matter what I say, I do not need any more yarn. Silly non-knitting husband. Then again, maybe he's saying that because he has yet to be the recipient of any knitted item. With comments like he makes, he may not be:) Sorry honey, I didn't have any yarn to make you anything. But wouldn't a cashmere scarf feel nice around your neck?

Maybe you should point out that if the item in the queue uses stash yarn, he shouldn't buy it.....

Once, on Rav, I ran across a new member. He was the non-knitting husband of a Rav member, "Rav stalking" his wife, to figure out what to buy her. Yep...that guy made a Rav account, just to buy his wife a present! All were delighted to help him.

I am glad that you had support while ripping.

I am not a religious woman, but I think this needs to be said regarding a skein of cashmere:

AMEN SISTER!

My gift from my boyfriend is not working - I'm between jobs - and I have time to finish oodles of stuff! I'm hacking my way thru, one thing at a time. This is such a luxury, and the cats stay snuggled up a lot so they are loving it too! It's like having new projects, given how old some of these are.

Loving all your posts re: Christmas Gifts, sent the first to my sisters,one that knits and knows computers the other that still hasn't sent photos of herself in the things I've sent for Christmases past. Best part of my computer mishaps is the Tech Guy I met. Such a sweetie, gave me 2G of RAM, came to the house and installed, we are friends now, thought of knitting him some felt slippers for Christmas,worried that they may have the sweater curse, will wait for his birthday.

I pictured "Stop" after each point. Telagram from a woman in need of the thirty-hour day.

Realized last night I've knit most of a sweater using size 9 needles when it was supposed to be 7. this explains why the neck looks so wonky. I have a plan involving scissors and alcohol for taking off the offending collar and redoing it without ripping everything back. I can't tell you how much I appreciate reading that you occasionally have knitting problems, too. Thank you!

The 24-day gift list for knitters is such a great idea! I'm discovering all sorts of gifts that I should have put on my wish list, but didn't know I needed (like blocking wires! Why didn't I think of that?).
My non-knitter boyfriend recently asked, "So, if someone wanted to get yarn as a gift for a certain someone else....how would the first someone go about doing that?". I could hardly control my excitement. Answer: read Stephanie's blog.

You ought to collect the "Gifts for Knitters" in one place, so that we can ever-so-subtly direct the non-knitters in our life there. :)

Thanks for sharing the saga with us. You encourage me to knit 'early....and often'. I am re-reading Free Range Knitter and may I say, reading your books is like enjoying Godiva chocolate, let it melt (in your head) and come back OFTEN. What I cannot do is read your books and knit at the same time, I laugh so hard I pull the needle out of the stitches. thanks. ME (Mary Ellen)

Courage, Mercury is in retrograde until December 13, so not too much longer. For a very apt description of the current moment see:
http://mysticmedusa.com/2011/12/why-you-are-bats-at-the-mo/

I certainly hope that there was some beer handy during that peer-support-ripping session. :)

How can I get my husband to read your blog? I don´t understand why he has never given me yarn.

"A skein of cashmere has seldom done a relationship damage. " No truer words have ever been spoken!

My LYS keeps wishlist cards at the front counter that you can add coveted yarn to during the year. So all my husband needs to do is go to the counter and ask to see the card - sometimes I forget what I've put on the card so its still a surprise.

PPPS-- Protip: take into account the types of projects you've seen your knitter working on or posting on facebook (if you aren't local). If they do a lot of socks and/or shawls, be sure to tell this to the nice folks at the yarn store. Chances are, your knitter may not be entranced with bulky yarn if they only knit socks. And conversely, if they only knit hats and/or sweaters, they may not love the idea of sock or lace weight yarn.

It sounds like your computer either has a power supply problem or is overheating. Either of these problems will cause your computer to totally die prematurely. I'm definitely not a computer geek - just heard the very same problem on one of the tech radio shows.

Cashmere. I'd take it.

I am fairly certain that the earth would stop turning if any non-knitter I know actually bought me cashmere yarn, or bison, or yak.

PPPS.
There is no law against a non fiberist joining Ravelry to see what is in a knitter's queue.

Someone commented that computer elves are nasty, however it is computer gnomes that Steph is suffering from. Totally different species and they have totally different jobs. Computer elves are magic and make your computer run smoothly. Computer gnomes on the other hand are nasty buggers who like to plant spyware, viruses, and yes even delete blog posts.

End of rant.

Steph, I do hope you are able to get over the evil computer gnomes and sweater gnomes. Don't ask about the sweater gnomes. All you need to know is that they are vicious monsters that just love to make sweater knitting go wrong. Good idea about ravelry and yarn. Excellent in fact. I shall refer my non knitter husband to this post, thanks for posting :D

You really should get this computer thing fixed. It keeps on eating things, when Macs are absolutely, positively, NOT supposed to do that. There's a really great Mac Knitters group on Rav that has helped me out when I've needed it (as I was transitioning from a PC to a Mac last year). Here 'tis:

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/mac-fans

Best of luck on Christmas knitting . . . and a partially knit sweater, boxed with a note and chocolate (or other treat attractive to the recipient) still counts. :o)

Thanks for all your gift suggestions! I am forwarding them to my husband, and some nice boxes have been arriving in the mail.

This is my favorite line, "PPPS. A skein of cashmere has seldom done a relationship damage."

Thanks for your blog, it is the highlight of my day.

I'm so sorry to hear about your computer troubles! I wish there was something we could do. Chip in to buy you a new one? =(

I love your yarn buying rules, though. Hilarious!

Now to get my husband to read your blog...

My hubby has a Ravelry account but does not take part in any yarn or stitch -involving crafts - it is purely so that he can look at links to patterns when I send them to him! I wonder if he has thought of looking at my queue (which I don't really use, more my Favourites although I do sometimes queue patterns to add them to my wishlist both other accounts cannot see my wishlist which defeats the whole object of a wishlist if you ask me / end_rant). Then again we don't really do anything for giftmas and don't have the cash to buy gifts. I use my queue/wishlist/favourites to spend any giftmas cash I gain from the relatives that don't remember we don't celebrate giftmas.
Then again #2, I did knit some of them more dishcloths for giftmas because my brother had asked for more…

Your computer has a virus.

Hello:

My friend knits for several designers. If you're interested I could ask her what she gets paid. It would be in US dollars though.

Please email if you are interested.

Alas,my husband insists I have too much yarn already. Pish posh, is there such a thing? In all fairness to him, he did buy me your new book for my birthday :)
Kind regards,
Have a jolly Christmas !
Lisa

I love that this post seems like it was directd to any family member who was in your house! Why isn't there a " like" button?!?

I thought it was the neck, too!
C'est la vie!

Oh Steph, when will you learn to back up your document as you go along? This is not your first experience with grouchy computers. It must be stressing out about Christmas. I know I am!! Hang in there.

Also, keep in mind the type of projects your knitter loves. If she knits lots of plain things, don't get her something with crazy cables or lace (unless you like listening to your knitter swear). My darling husband did the sneaky thing and I still haven't made the project, because the yarn/project combo wasn't super conducive to commute or TV knitting (and he objects to me just admiring the yarn).

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