Hello everyone …
… and this was July. I am still super behind in my personal timeline but by now I am accepting that I have to roll with the punches and that I am super behind. Apparently, this was July, and August began yesterday. Huh.
For me, the beginning of August always marks the second half of the year in which the names of the months get longer again – and that also means that I am trying to get a grip on my Christmas planning. As I said in my post before last, I have bought most of my Christmas knitting yarn, and that also means that the list is more or less done by now. But before we are getting there … pictures!
The blanket is a weird bundle right now, and I had to put a filter on the photograph so you could see more of the true colours (they are a bit darker in real life). The pattern instructs you to use one long circular needle or “more than one” – I am using three now, two to hold the border stitches and a third one to knit, althought the whole thing does fit onto one needle, as I figured out by accident this afternoon. So far, it’s coming along fine.
Picking up the stitches was a tiny bit difficult for me, since we had to do some math on how many stitches I would have to pick up in each half-hexagon and the corners on the short sides (thanks, Philipp!), but once that was done, it got easier. All in all, I need to work ten rounds – five ridges of garter stitch – and it might just be enough, but we’ll see. Right now, I am completing the third ridge, so there is a good chance that the blanket will get finished this week (fingers crossed!)
The Little Lion’s hat has also seen some progress and has gone from this:
To this:
I know that this is probably going to be WAY too big for a newborn kid (although the pattern says that this is the “baby” size and I am getting gauge), but I am not too bothered by this. The hat is warm, Fishermen’s rib is stretchy, and if the upcoming winter will be like the last, well, the Little Lion will probably make good use of the hat. (I really like the colour combo, by the way)
This hat will not be the last this year – right now, I have six items on my Christmas list. Apart from the cowls I showed you in the post above (it’s here if you don’t want to scroll ;) ), I’d also like to make the little Hoodie from this post for the Little Lion. One Christmas present is undecided yet (I think it’s gonna be mittens, but nothing is fixed). Most of this yarn, if not all of this, should be gone by the end of December:
Apart from all of this, there are going to be two hats, one of them being for my mother. She had asked for a hat the year before last, but did so way too late, and so I told her no. This year, at my grandfather’s birthday, I asked her if she would still like one, after talking about Christmas presents with my gran at the restaurant and noticing that she was listening intently. After a very quick browse through my queue (with Philipp’s phone, because I had left mine in the car), she enthusiastically picked Clare Hutchinson’s Northlights (ravelry link). I warned her that it might not be super, super warm, being knit in fingering weight, but since she is also used to wearing the hood of the winter jacket on top of it, she should be okay. For the yarn, we decided that I will go and use up some yarn I got for Mathilda’s sweater, because Mathilda will most likely get Hel et Zel’s Petite Saponaire instead of Archange. We still have to take her head measurements, but once that is done, I’m good to go.
All of this is a lot, and I mean, a LOT of work. I know that. On the other hand, I have never made a lot of single items before – mostly, it was socks, and mittens (of which you need two), or bigger items, such as scarves and shawls. We’ll see how it goes this year.
This is the yarn, by the way.
I will be back as soon as I can, with pictures of Lenka’s shawl and pictures of the blanket, and a hopefully further grown hat, but until then, I hope you have a fantastic week and sleep well tonight. :)
All the love,
Julia
