March is almost over, so I think it is time to show you some of the Christmas knitting I did for last Christmas.
This is the biggest project I made for Christmas.
Mittens knit with 2.5 mm needles, with Knitpicks' Palette yarn. I had seen this pattern last summer and it is perfect for my stepmom. She has
these Polish coffee cups that are the inspiration for the mittens. (
Ravelry link).
I actually made 3 mittens, because the first one was too small. I learned a lot on stranded knitting from this project and in the end had more even knitted mittens compared to the first ones. I love making these stranded mittens with fingering weight yarn and have a lot in my queue on Ravelry to choose from.
When my husband saw these mittens, he wanted me to knit a pair for his mom. I finished them last month (these take a while) and were blogged
here. They ended up being a Christmas/birthday present for my MIL.
For my dad, I made the
Cigar gloves from Knitty. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of them before I sent them off, but they were knit with 4.5 mm (US7) needles with Knitpicks' Wool of the Andes in
Mocha Twist . (Picture from the Knitpicks
website)
I didn't make these for him because he likes to smoke cigars. He is
a very talented photographer, and I made them for him to take photos in the cold without his hands getting too cold. I have made another pair of these gloves. Two years ago,
I made a pair for me, and I have used them a lot. For my gloves, I closed all the fingers, so it's complete gloves.
My dad's mittens came out nicely in this yarn. The color was good, but my knitting was a bit off, since there is a noticeable size difference between them. I decided not to worry about it too much because it would have been stressful to knit them to perfection and at the same time send them to Iceland in time for Christmas.
Other than this I made the Elephant and the Bunny (blogged previously
here) for my daughters. The elephant was ready just in time for Christmas and went into K's stocking.
But the bunny wasn't even started until after Christmas and was delivered at Christmas as a pattern and yarn.
Last, but definitely not least, are slippers. This is not the first pair I make. I think it was the 11th pair I've made. The pattern comes from a booklet from Sandnes (Norwegian yarn company). Of the 11, these are the second pair made out of
plötulopi (the Icelandic unspun pensil roving). I knit them with double strand of the wool, started with the light color on top and then mixed the yarn, one light and one dark strand and ended with two strands of the dark yarn. The slippers went to my mom, but it took forever in the mail and she didn't get them until few weeks after Christmas.
In the photo you can see one slipper which have been shaved and one unshaved slippper. They got very hairy after they felted. I had to run them twice through the washing machine before they had felted enough and then give them a good 'haircut'.
It's so good to get this out on the blog, finally. Soon I can show you what I've been doing in March ;)
