Gift Bag Knitting

I am well known in my family for not wrapping gifts.  I wrapped gifts one Christmas season in a jewelry store.  It ruined me for life.  (What kind of ribbon would you like on this teeny, tiny, cheap-ass ring box, sir? The oversized silver plated tray with no box, madam?) Mostly, now, I either put it in a brown paper bag or a paper gift bag with some tissue paper.  The reusable paper gift bags are perfect for me.  Sometimes I weaken if there is a child involved.  Great kid story –on his 5^th birthday, my nephew had a small party.  Most of the gifts were presented in paper gift bags.  He “whispered” to his mother “I guess they don’t know how to wrap packages.”  That’s me.

The Galworthy Gift Bag, which Kirsten Kapur designed for Drop Dead Easy Knits, might be a little something to keep in my knitting-on-the-go pouch for some mindless knitting that could turn into a part of the present, as well as the gift bag.  (Hey, I see that Amazon has dropped the price of Drop Dead Easy Knits.  Not sure why, but that means it comes out to about .40 US per pattern!!  So go buy it! You won’t be sorry!

Kirsten designed the bag in Neighborhood Fiber Company Penthouse Silk Fingering for a truly luscious, special gift. Silk sure does take the color, doesn’t it?  You could use any fingering weight yarn for it, though.  Perfect for leftovers.

I was reminded of this pattern by Barbara Benson – the clever mosaic and lace knitting podcaster in her latest episode, Favorite 5 – Knitted Market Bags (mostly).  (Although she missed the real market bag in the book, Searsport Market Bag.)

Here’s some action/detail shots of the gift bag Kirsten made before the book photo shoot:

You could even put yarn in it to give away.  Is there a word for a yarn turducken?

 

DROP DEAD EASY KNITS DRINKALONG✨

Join in the fun and win fabulous prizes!  Over on Instagram it’s the

🌟DROP DEAD EASY KNITS DRINKALONG✨

Through Dec 31, post a picture of your beverage of the moment- tea, coffee, hot mulled wine, or refreshing spring water – on our coaster.

Here’s one with my water glass at work.

Didn’t get a coaster?  Use a facsimile DropDeadEasyKnits coaster, the cover of the book or even a knitted item. Use our hashtag #DropDeadEasyKnitsDAL .✨

We’ll be doing giveaways of the book, yarn packs to make projects, plus some additional e goodies.

Here’s a jpg of the coaster to use if you don’t have a real one!

It is supposed to be -20F tomorrow evening.  Knitting at home is the plan!

Craft Friday: The Magic of Making

Beverly at Pomogolightly is having another CraftFriday, instead of Black Friday. I avoid even grocery stores on Black Friday if I can help it. (For those fortunate enough not to know what that is – it is a push for sales the day after American Thanksgiving to get your books in the black.  It has gotten waaay out of hand.) I plan to shop in my stash. Although one must be careful shopping in stash.  I was working on a pair of mittens for the mitten drive at work using a ball of  lovely lovely turquoise yarn.  More than a few rounds into the second one, I realized it was not the same turquoise yarn as I had used for the first.  Some idiot had wound two different yarns into the ball of leftovers.  Some idiot too lazy to turn a light on in her workroom?  Fortunately, this same idiot had another ball of the right yarn.   Can you tell I worked on this second one at the office, while on a webinar?

A paper clip makes quite a satisfactory temporary stitch holder.

I am also cranking out gift socks, resting up for more complicated labors yet to come.

I am feeling a bit sad that I am too far away from my great niece to start the gift making traditions. There is such magic in making things.

I was pondering the magic part this morning when I serendipitously read two posts – one by Franklin Habit, and one by Donna Druchunas, both on the magical aspect of craft.  Donna quotes Neil Shubin, Your Inner Fish 

“The hand actually defines us in many ways. When you think about what makes our species unique and special, it’s having thoughts and being able to make those thoughts real. And the way our thoughts become real is through use of our hands to build things, to make things.”

And that is magic, of a sort.  Are you planning any magic?  If you need inspiration, pop on over to Pinterest and see Beverly’s Craft Friday board.

I plan to shop in my stash, but with the light on.

In the Bleak Meteorological Mid-Winter

Frosty winds are making moan at my house.  I saw this on Weather Underground the other day, the difference between astronomical winter and meteorological winter and figured it would make a good lead-in for a long overdue New Year post.

First of all, the annual present making with the mostly grown up children went well, one of the best efforts.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get photos of all the candles we made, because the team got them packed and wrapped before I remembered.  It went so well, and their mother uses so many candles that we talked about a repeat for next year.  They could each search for some cool containers ahead of time.  (Yeah, right….)

Here’s an action shot of the crew at lunch – surrounded by our still unpainted dining room walls.  Those are sparkling juice bottles, BTW.

I didn’t get pictures of all the gifts they made for one another, since some of that action took place elsewhere, and some of the phone camera shots aren’t very useful.  There were, however, some cute hippo slipper(s), even if not quite finished:

And some of the gifts I made them:

Popm poms, of course!

   

Socks and infinity scarves

This is the infinity scarf in its first incarnation, a Honey Cowl.

I was clearly not going to have enough yarn, and I was using stash, a skein of Casbah carried with a skein of Kid Silk Haze, so there was no more to be had.  I ripped it out and used a stitch pattern with a much less compressed row gauge.    Here’s what I had left after the new version:

And for the one teen aged boy I know who likes to dress up:

He appears to be checking out my workmanship, I hope I passed the test.  That is a newish pattern, Adair, the grown up version of the Avery vest.  I used some JoSharp DK that was in my stash, and Mr. Style has worn it quite a few times already, so I hear.

There is also a shaped option with sleeves for women.   The yarn is the Pediboo Worsted, the grown up version of Pediboo.  It is lovely stuff.

I thought I might do a knitting year in review, for my own record keeping, but this post is already too long .  For those down under, keep cool.  For the rest of us, snuggle in and stay warm and dry.  Happy 2014 to all.