Some Yule gifts.

I had intended this to a be a tutorial post,  with nice glossy pictures of the whole process of making beaded stitch markers.   My camera disagreed with me,  and gave me only one glossy picture.   Ah, well, so it goes.

I am making stitch marker sets for the ladies in my knitting circle.     Beaded stitch markers are fast and fun to make,  and always useful.    The ones I make are very simple – I just slid the beads I’m using onto an I pin,  then bend the end of the pin around a knitting needle into a circle and neaten it up with some small pliers.

Each set I am making will have 8 colored markers, in two different patterns, and a set of alphabet markers – A thru H,  which are useful for complicated patterns.

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Travelling Roses

Isn’t that a great name for a pattern? I have just started the Travelling Roses Lace Scarf. Leanne designed the pattern(pdf) and generously shared it with the world. It’s gorgeous.

Here she is after an hour of knitting – that’s 17 rows there, folks:

And a close up:

Size 1 needles, Malabrigo lace in a lovely dark blue.

Question of the day – is this delicate? Or insane?

‘Tis the Season.

To knit nice things for those you love. Not being willing to subject myself to excessive holiday knitting guilt though, I’m not. The ones I love get the knitting love year round, and making myself crazy to try and make a holiday deadline would not contribute to peace on earth and goodwill towards men.

I am knitting one gift though. Just one. Not a holiday gift, exactly. This whole holiday thing is purely coincidental I tell you – sheer happenstance. That the colors and patterns on this hat are slightly reminiscent of a certain upcoming winter holiday which the hat will be done by – also a simple bit synchronicity, purely un-intended in every way. Really.

The body pattern is done, and I am ready to start the crown decreases. That bit of distortion in the middle is due to the hem being knit in there, and should all but vanish when blocked.

This is the Norwegian Star pattern from Charlene Schurch’s book ‘Hats On!’ It’s on size 4 and six needles (you work the internal brim at a small gauge so it tucks in neatly), and being worked in Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted.

Thank you.

Melanie and Paula teamed up to send me this (times have been a little rough around here – they are great friends):

And this is the first sentence prize from the Short Story Writing Month Write-Along:

There was also a yummy packet of jelly beans – but I am afraid they didn’t last as long as it took to recharge my camera batteries.