Christmas Knitting

It's been a good while, maybe 2 years, since I last picked up my knitting needles. There's been so much other "stuff" going on that I just had not had the time. But,that all changed when my DD saw some self striping sock yarn in Hobby Lobby and said that she thought it would make cute hats for her girls. So I bought a few skeins of sock yarn and that's all it took.

Coincidentally, at work we have started a new program with The Circle Center, which I will explain at a later date, and one of the first things we had to do was choose something that we needed to work on. I decided to work on "focusing", which I often have a problem with, as you will see. And I always wondered where my DS got his ADD!?!

If you are a knitter, you know that knitting is a good thing to help with focus. In fact, with many patterns, focus is an essential part of completing a project successfully.

Well, sock yarn is what is called "fingering weight", which means it requires small needles. And I needed circular needles to keep me from having to sew seams, which I always try to avoid. So I made a trip to Haus of Yarn, my local yarn store and bought some size 2 circular needles. Well, OK, 2 size 2 circular needles. One is 16" and one is 12". Who knew that there were 12" circulars out there?! I HAD to have them.

Then I decided I needed a good book for knitting with sock yarn and I remembered seeing this book the last time I was in a yarn store?!

So I asked if there was a similar book with patterns just for kids, and this is what they showed me:

Well of course I had to buy BOTH of them, you know, just in case I decide to make some things for me too. And I HAD to buy 2 skeins of Lana Grossa sock yarn because you CAN'T go to a yarn store and not buy yarn!

So I knit up 2 precious hats from the yarn I bought at Hobby Lobby, which I of course didn't take pictures of, for my DD's 2 girls. THEY LOVED THEM!

Then a big light went off in my head - hey - I could knit Christmas presents for other people too!

I know, sometimes I'm a little slow.

So I pulled out the Lana Gross and started knitting a scarf, in the round. But knitting a scarf on size 2 needles takes a LONG time, and I quickly got bored with it. But I had gotten far enough that what I had already knit was about the right length for a child's hat, so I made it into this cute little hat for one of the smaller members of my family (shh, don't tell). Then I decided little people need little leg warmers too, so I winged the pattern for the tiny little leg warmers to go with it.

Then I realized that I had LOTS of yarn left over because these two things only took part of one skein and I have 2. So I've started these leg warmers in a slightly larger size for another one of the smaller members of my family. They are working up great on my new 12" circular needles. They are just knit in a K2 P2 pattern, which goes pretty quickly and I just found out that they only have to be about 7" long - so that should take just a few nights of after work TV knitting!

But if you think that's all I've been knitting - remember the focus thing? Yeah, well, just maybe I've worked on a few other knitting projects too. You know, because I get bored doing the same thing all the time and need options!