Merry Christmas!

...from my desktop to yours.


Cards are all made and sent out, gifts are wrapped and ready to give. My suitcase it packed and I am off! To New Mexico for the rest of 2006 and some of 2007.

See you in January! Happy Holidays!

busy fingers.

This time of year I always start making my christmas cards. Last year it was cutting out lots of tiny mittens from red and green paper that I fastened to string with itty bitty closepins. The year before I simply made colorful squares and threaded through silky ribbons to tie on top.

This year, it's trees.
Lots and lots of trees!




I worked on these when I was visiting my parents house this week. They hardly ever get a tree anymore and sometimes I really miss it. This is what I always remember it being like.



Happy Holidays!

plant one on the seed stitch.

I don't have time to knit everybody stuff for the Holidays, so here's something fun to make and wear from a pattern I made up. Consider it my gift to you! Or you can make one and give it to someone else. You can thank me later.

I have a very small head and I always make hats that are TOO BIG. Hats stretch out easily, too, so I started here with only 58 sts. You may choose to do 60 or 64 even, but just make sure it is an even number and keep in mind that the ribbing on the brim is going to look MUCH smaller than it really is…

Ok. So cast on 58sts. Size 10 needles strait needles (even tho the yarn calls for 11 or 12s)
Knit 1 x 1 rib for desired length of brim approx. 1 - 2”

Next, to begin first row of seed stitch begin knitting onto size 11 needles. Now knit in a knit purl pattern that is OPPOSITE of the rib. The stitches will not sit nicely on top of each other like in the ribbing, but will create a pattern of bumps and dents.

Rib pattern – knit, purl, k, p, k, p etc!
Seed st row 1 – Purl, k, p, k etc
Row 2 – Knit, purl, k, p, k, p
Row 3 – purl, knit and so on…

Shaping the crown is difficult with the seed stitch, at least it is difficult to keep all those intentional bumps in order. I managed by beginning my decrease row as:

Dec row 1 – K1, Purl 2tog, *K2tog, P1, K2tog, P1* *to end
Row 2 – same thing!
Row 3 – seed stitch even, no decrease!
Row 4 – depending on which stitch you are supposed to start off with, I K2tog, P2tog all sts in an even rotation.
And same for Row 5.
And Row 6.

Stop when you have approx 7 sts on your needles and cut the remaining thread with enough yarn to loop through the remaining sts and to sew up the top. If you knit this hat on straight needles instead of circular (which I did and works fine!) then sew up the side seem so it is nice and invisible.