The Yarn Harlot has said in the past that she knits during the year and just puts things in the gift box. It's a great idea if you would like to give handmade gifts, and one that I could conceive of doing though as time goes on I make myself more and more items and gift fewer and fewer. It's just hard to know who is going to like what, and especially as many of my knit (and other) gifts are sent via mail I just don't know how well they are received. It is a bit hard to spend all of that time for something that isn't liked.
So, now I make items and I decide as I am making them if they are a for me item, a gift item or a for me but I'm gifting it anyway item.
The last knitted gift of the year (which was I believe the first one done) is for the astute and knowledgeable a Honey Cowl. I loved this pattern. Working it should have been boring, but it wasn't. I don't know why it wasn't boring, but Kay of Mason Dixon has made so many of these honey cowls that they might have their own room!
I used a fingering weight strand of silk with a laceweight merino strand and it created this gorgeous depth of color. While I wanted it for myself, it is a perfect gift for someone I know. Off into the mail it went.
I do have a bit left of the two yarns. They are gorgeous and I might try to make something small with them, but I will make a second honey cowl. I like the fingering weight with the larger stitch count. I have a skein of Noro Sock (I don't remember if it is silk garden) in the lovely natural toned 269. I know there was a run on the color a year or two ago. A couple of patterns used it and became popular, which of course meant the color had to be discontinued. I believe there was a campaign to bring it back.
Of course, none of that matters. I have my one skein of sock yarn and that is good enough, right? This would also be lovely in a beaded yarn mixed with something with a bit of halo. The only problem is that most beaded yarns have limited yardages. I'm not sure you could make a substantial cowl from any of the beaded skeins I have seen.
No husbands were harmed or coerced in the making of this photo. I promise.
Yeah, I have been doing some sewing. I have a skirt that hasn't made the light of the blog yet, which I have worn to compliments.
I did some stash diving and found Japanese (or Japanese inspired) fabric that I bought at Winmill Fabrics back when I lived in Somerville. Umm, to be clear I'm pretty sure this is fabric I bought when I lived in my first apartment in Somerville. That would make the fabric more than 10 years old and moved more times than I want to think about.
I backed it (which cannot really be seen in the photo) with fabric I bought at Gather Here the first year they were open. I used some for a maneki neko. Well, I had bought more with the idea that I was going to sew up some gifts. That didn't happen then, but it finally happened now.
Of course, after Tuesday, I can actually have finished photo shots rather than the stitch patterns, and bits and bobs of finished items.
Until then, happy holidays!
