Friday, November 13, 2020, Issue 174: It is six weeks until Christmas!

• Posted on 12 November 2020
• By Susan Wong-Tsang
• Posted in Fall Knitting, Gift Knitting, KAL, knit-along, November 2020, sweater weather
• 0

Well after the unseasonably warm weather we recently had, the current cold snap means sweater weather again! Great excuse to wear a big shawl too like Connie here in her gorgeous Fading Point by Joji Locatelli!

Are you ready for a little fun Christmas knitting?

Jingle all the Way by Jolijn Copier Designs (woolandstrings) are the ultimate Christmas socks and a free Ravelry download patteern. They are simple straight forward socks with a double cuff with points, cheerful stripes, a Jojo-heel, a funny curly toe and…. jingle bells! These socks are specially designed for Santa’s helpers and with the curly toe they exactly fit in their curly toe shoes!

The pattern includes five sizes and you will need 50g of red, white and green or 100g of a self striping Christmas sock yarn and yarn for the heel, toes and the points. Gauge is 32 stitches and 44 rows = 4 inches.

These are SSKnits Mitten Garland Advent Calendar by Kathy Lewinski. The 24 mini mittens are available for free individually or as a paid pattern including the written pattern, 24 mitten charts and a blank chart. Knit them as to use a a garland or to use as your holiday tree decorations! Each mitten is about 4.5” tall and 2.25” wide (not including thumb), just big enough for a small gift.

Kristin Spurkland’s Snow Bird Stocking is a traditional Christmas stocking with a different front and back design inspired by Nordic decorative arts worked in red and white. Birds perch at the top of the stocking, above a field of stars and vines; the stripes on the back side of the stocking are an abstract rendering of bird prints in the snow. This pattern can also be found in Interweave Knits, Holiday Gifts 2012 issue.

Sheep! by Susan B. Anderson are adorable, distinctive sheep worked completely seamlessly from the bottom-up on double pointed needles but you can easily adapt it to knit using magic loop. They were designed to be knit using fingering weight yarn for a finished size of 4 inches for the body length and 3.5 inches tall. Garnstudio Drops Flora would be a great yarn to knit them with. Of course you can also knit them larger just by using a heavier yarn like Istex LettLopi and using larger 3.5 mm needles instead of 2.75 mm needles.

Otso by Sophie Scott for Loop, London is a delightful toy bear that can be knit flat or in the round that is a free Ravelry download pattern. Otso is knit using an aran weight yarn and has a finished size of 11 inches tall from feet to head, not including his ears. He would just as good knit using a smooth yarn as he would knit with a rustic yarn such as Istex LettLopi or Navia Faroese Sock! If you knit him with a finer yarn like Jamieson & Smith 2 Ply Jumper Weight, he would just be smaller.

I am almost ready to start my second skein of Lichen and Lace Marsh Mohair. This wrap is so pretty and delicate looking!

KNIT GROUP AND GALLERY

The current Knit-Alongs are the Any Sweater / Shawl KAL and the Knit Your Project: the everlasting knit-along to encourage and support you to knit is running from October 1 to December 31, 2020.

Don’t forget to post a pic to the finished object (FO) thread whenever you finish a project during the Knit-Along so that you will be included in the next draw! We will also add the option of posting your finished project to Instagram using the #sue2knitskal so that I can find them!

Connie (knitnut246)’s Fading Point by Joji Locatelli is finished and ready to wear!

Connie (knitnut246) also finished her Susurrus by Joji Locatelli for the Joji Fall KAL 2020 using the pattern yarns!

I love the colour combination in Brenda (@bmallat42)’s Jodi by Joji Locatelli!

Brenda (@bmallat42)’s Nellie’s Otter Tracks Shawl by Tricia Maynard is another beautiful winner!

Jenny (JChan8) knit this fabulous Wintry Lake Shawl by Greta Mensen (@grethamensen). Enjoy 25% introductory sale until 14.11.2020, midnight Amsterdam. Discount code: wintry

Angela knit herself this Turtle Dove II without the turtleneck using Malabrigo Worsted!

Nikki knit this for her daughter and she loves it!!

My sister Mary finished her Rock It Tee by Tanis Lavallee knit using Koigu KPPPM and Drops Kid Silk!! She has two more on her needles!

Anna (@kollar.annie) test knit this fun The Very Stretchy Caterpillar by Fiber Chronicles (@fiberchronicles)! Would make a great gift with Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Sonia (@soniabknits) knit these fun striped vanilla Christmas socks for her husband!

Veronica (@xovee.knits) with some of her gorgeous Red Brie Beanies - her pattern is being tested and look at her mitts!

Ann (annvanwagner)’s Terra Shawl by Joji Locatelli is lacy and textured but she finished with only 1g left of yarn!!

Diane (ladi-di) her Sliptravaganza by Stephen West for his MKAL 2020!

SHOP UPDATE

A new shipment of Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light, Unicorn Tails and Tosh DK arrived yesterday morning!

**A new shipment of Malabrigo Arroyo and Rios also arrived but I forgot to take a picture before I put them on the shelves!

VIRTUAL SOCIAL KNITTING

Virtual social knitting using the Zoom app! It has been a great way to knit together through social distancing! Join in with us either Tuesday afternoon from 2 - 4 pm or Thursday nights from 7 - 9 pm. We are continuing to hold our Zoom meetings each week until we can meet again in person. Clicking on the link will take you to our Zoom meeting.

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting
 
Meeting ID: 407820804

Happy Friday. Happy Knitting, Crocheting and Crafting! Keep calm and keep on knitting and making!