Spent part of Saturday with my new swift and yarn ball winder.  I turned this:

Into this: 

Well, I didn’t get photos of all my Christmas knitting because my camera crapped out just before Christmas.  I hope I got everything covered with my film camera, but I still need to finish the roll before I send it in.  It will be like Christmas all over again when I see the photos!

Here are some of the items that I photographed before wrapping:

Christmas knitting

Red hats for Abby and Sierra, a striped helmetliner for Tanner, gray hat for Jim, blue hat for Neil, purple hat for Madalynn, and a purple headband/earwarmer for Rebecca.

In addition to these I made 2 more hats, 2 more headband/earwarmers, 2 pairs of socks, a scarf, 2 tea cozies, a pair of slippers, and 9 sets of dishcloths and scrubbies.

It looks like Neil and his family liked their hats!

I shopped around, did some research, and ordered my new camera.  I think I’m going to be very happy with it, but since I’ve spent the better part of the last 10 days at home on the couch struggling with a nasty head cold I haven’t had much chance to try it out.  I haven’t even felt like knitting (much)!  Today I can tell I’m doing better because I’ve finished a project, lined up plans for 2 more to start, and am about to finish a small project I started after Christmas.

The presents are all knit and lovingly packaged for deployment Friday and Sunday.  I hope everyone will be happy with their gifts.  I know the box reached Connecticut and I hope they will get some use out of theirs.  I’ll post the photos and final tally once all the gift giving is done.  I shocked myself when I compiled the list!

Of course I LOVE the present I made Mom and I’ve already started making one for myself.  I showed it around at work and they were all in love.  So Mom, if you don’t like it I know about 20 people that would be willing to take it off your hands!

I hope everyone travels safe and has a wonderful Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate!

My friend Shadow is helping me with my knitting

Since we’ve had our first Christmas celebration with Dad & Dianne I’m free to post some photos!

Here is the reversible knit headband for Dad (modeled by Ian).  It was double knit in the round and a really fun technique.  Dad needs something for his ears during the morning bicycle rides!

Here are the rest of the gifties:

A Vintage Hand Towel from the new Mason Dixon knitting book, some dish cloths (not all were gifted yet, so if you weren’t at the log house on Thursday don’t peek), some dish scrubbies, and Dad’s earwarmer (sounds more masculine than “headband”).  Dad called the dish cleaning items ”scrubbie and wipey”.    I’m sure Dianne will let him call them whatever he wants as long as he uses them!

I really liked how the hand towel came out.  It’s a nice size and an interesting item to knit.  I used a ball of variegated Peaches n Cream and one of white with a vintage button from my button box.  I’m already allocating a ball of stash yarn to make one for myself when selfish knitting month comes up in January. 

For our make it or bake it Christmas I received a nice ball of sock yarn for MY SOCKS, and a cross stitched penguin who is really darling.  Dad made a great tray that holds my teapot and cup for deploying to wherever I’m going to sit and knit.

And doesn’t that pot look sweet with its knitted cozy?

I’m off to demonstrate some bobbin lace downtown this afternoon at the Timeless Needle…what a great weekend this has been!

Yes, it’s that time of the year when I do lots of knitting that I cannot post about because one of my few readers might be a family member and that would spoil the surprise of their holiday gift.  Darn!  Maybe I ought to start something else just to have a public project?