Christmas Knitting

As you might expect, most of the Christmas gifts I give tend to be handknitted, while many of the gifts I receive tend to be knitting related. This year, my favorite knitting related gift was a dress form that I can use to display my finished objects. So I get to use it for the first time as well as show off the Christmas presents I made this year, which I freely admit I am proud of mainly because I knit them all in just over 2 weeks. Not bad, considering it took over 1.2 miles of yarn to knit it all.

So the first present I started was a stole for my mom. I had ordered the yarn from Knit Picks during their big sale, then had to wait for it to arrive, so I didn't start it until the 7th. It was easily the most frustrating of the projects, since I designed it myself and discovered after I was roughly at the half way point that I had accidentally inserted a column of knit stitches into one of the charts so that it wouldn't match up with any of the others and had to rip it all out:

 

Started a bit later but worked at the same time since my dad doesn't usually notice what I knit and I could work on it while sitting with the rest of my family was my dad's scarf. He didn't have a good scarf, just this ratty thing he found in the closet, so I made him one to match the hat I made for him earlier this year. It's too long for the mannequin (7 feet, since my dad is about 6'4"), so I'll add one of him wearing it Christmas morning once my mom sends it to me. 

After I finished Mom's gift, I needed a girl gift for the family gift exchange on Christmas Eve. We have to bring a generic $30 gift for our gender, then we pick numbers and choose a present to unwrap in that order, although you can also steal something someone else you can open. I decided to use up some stash yarn and a spare tube of seed beads and knit a wide scarf (could be worn as a stole). Lace is pretty quick since it stretches out so much, so it only took a few days.  My mom drew number 1, the best number since she gets to pick first and has a chance to steal at the end if she wants, and knew what was in mine (she had seen it on my blocking mat), so she picked it and no one bothered to take it from her. 

 

 The last present was a basic 1x1 ribbed scarf for my brother Sean to match a hat I gave him earlier this year. I stayed up until about 2 am on Christmas Eve night to finish it, so I didn't get any pictures before he left, so I'll have to post one from Christmas morning once those are up.

I mentioned that I finally got a good picture of my Drum Beat cowl, so here it is: