Well, this year really shows how far I’ve come with my knitting! Last year I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving anyone anything I’ve knitted (except maybe a scarf), but this year I gave loads of knitted gifts, to greater or lesser degrees of success – OK so this was mainly because I was unemployed and couldn’t afford to buy anything ‘proper’, but I’m so glad I have a useful backup skill like this, so that I didn’t feel like the world’s stingiest santa!
Firstly, a tale of woe. My first big disaster, and Dad’s main present, was a jumper I have been knitting for him since about July (!). I measured him, did all the maths and stuff as I was supposed to according to The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, yet for some reason, as I was seaming the bastard thing up, I realised I utterly cocked it up. It was about 4 inches too short on the body, and a bit too short on the arms too. He gamely tried it on, but unless he has grown up quite a lot since I measured him (doubtful!) it’s something to do with my sums… I was too upset even to do anything but sigh lots and stuff the whole lot in a bag, awaiting inspiration – I will either frog it & start again *cry* or try & figure out some way to *add* length to the bottom. I may even post a request on Ravelry asking for help, as it’s currently beyond my knitterly skills – anyway, for now, it is sitting in the naughty cupboard!
Here are the bits awaiting seaming:
Here is the mostly-seamed misfit jumper lounging on my best chair and taunting me with its mockery of my maths:
He had also specifically said he hated scarves, but I figured with all his long blustery walks he needed something to keep his neck warm, so he also got a neckwarmer. I just made up a pattern for this, based on a scarf I did a while back, and used 1 skein of Rowan Big Wool held with a strand of fluffy aran stuff left over from Jen’s Gretel hat.
My sister Jen got the Gretel hat, some purple armwarmers, some felted slippers, and a Drops grey knitted bag. I think these were moderately successful – she wore the hat a lot, but also claimed it was because she hadn’t bothered washing her hair, so when she gets back to normal who knows if it’ll get an outing! She seemed to like the slippers too, though to my self-judgmental eye they were a bit big & could have done with some more shrinking. Don’t think she liked the armwarmers much, which is a shame as they are gorgeous Rowan Cashsoft 4-ply and very shlinky. Ah well! She also wants to change the strap on the bag to a handle of some kind – am sure she can manage this without making an arse of it, so wasn’t toooo disappointed (though I might have been, if I’d spent ages doing the knitted strap I was supposed to have done!).
grey bag based on Drops pattern – the main change I made was adding a suede-y strap as I thought it looked nicer than the garter stitch one on the bag.
felted slippers, from another Drops pattern,
feather and fan armwarmers, my own made up pattern (didn’t get a pic of them being worn, unfortunately!),
Gretel hat, above, and being worn by she-of-the-dirty-hair, below:
Oh – and I forgot – I also made her a carrier bag holder for her new kitchen, in some ace retro 50s material I had off eBay ages ago, of well-dressed ladies doing kitchen stuff. Just a sewn up tube with a drawstring at the top to stuff bags into, and an elasticated hole at the bottom to pull bags out of – voila:
Right – so that leaves Dad’s partner Pam, and her son Martin, as mentioned in previous blog post, pretty much unknown quantities, certainly as far as gift-giving goes. So I was a bit scared about what to make them, yet they seemed to actually like their gifts – hurrah! Either that or because I was looking so grumpy the whole time they decided to get spectacularly ass-kissy about it all 
Martin got a Saartjes Noro Hat but in charcoal Cascade 220, as 1. it’s what I had in and B. I thought it was less controversial for a boy. I also modded it as in my own Noro Hat so that it doesn’t go all pointy at the top & is more of a beanie. He seemed pleased! He’s studying Politics at Uni – the boy will go far with that much diplomacy!
I was running out of knitting time/ideas now, and getting RSI from hell, so Pam got a tote bag:
Actually, I was really pleased with how the bag turned out. It’s some really lovely Amy Butler fabric, teamed with my seemingly never-ending stash of fake suede upholstery fabric – nice & hardwearing.
Anyway, that’s the Xmas pressies over & done with, I think. One last thing to mention – I made my first ever trip to Get Knitted on Xmas Eve, courtesy of lovelyDad(tm) (who didn’t swear once on the way there) and I came out with goodies! One’s for my CPaAG swap pal, so I won’t show it here till she sees it, and one was some more cream Cascade 220 for his bastard sweater from hell xmas jumper, but here are two I got just for me!
Cascade 220 paints, in um… dunno, lost the band, but it’s all autumnal, with bits of purple too – this has actually already been knitted up into mittens for my mate Yvonne, and I totally forgot to take pics of them, so I will have to get her to bring them over for a photoshoot one day!
and – ta-daaa!!! – one precious skein of Koigu KPPM in some other yummy colourway I’ve forgotten.
*drool* *slobber*
The colours are just so vivid and beautiful! It’s destined to be mittens/armwarmers for me, when my hands recover from the Xmas knitting!
