Like so many of us I am finishing a few gifts I started late for Christmas. I didn’t really get the knitting bug for gifts until a week into December and managed to bang out four scarves and a shawl in time to ship and arrive before the 25th.

I did a soft, girly, garter stitch scarf for my grand-niece Rei in Vermont. She is all of 7 years old and just the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen. The scarf is made with some downy mini-bouclee yarn that is mostly white with a shifting of colors over it in pink, blue and green. No pic, sorry.

I made a simple shawl for my mom, who is all of 89 years old. You may know how it is when the right colors of yarn just announce themselves, “I’m for her” and you don’t have to think. I did this one in Homespun Tudor, which is a nice light mix of soft greens, aqua, lavender, gold, and rose. It was perfect for her. Just another garter stitch piece because I had to mail it asap. I was able to finish it in three days, with a total of 8900 stitches or so. I put a crochet chain fringe on it that I tend to favor for such things, as it looks really nice, but you also can’t do a cut fringe in this yarn as it just frizzes out.

Here’s a pic of Mom looking at me on the TV as we were doing our now annual Google video Christmas chat. I highly recommend it. This is the second year we’ve done it and it has turned out great. Mom says the shawl is warm. I didn’t think it would be with such a large needle. I would have done something fancier but I didn’t have time. She is also legally blind so wouldn’t be able to see any fancy stitching with her very blurry vision anyway. I was going for color and feel alone because of that.

I also did a leaf lace scarf for my other niece Erin. I did it in Thick and Quick Charcoal on 15 mm needles. It was my first serious lace and I really liked how it turned out. The large needle made for a pleasantly squishy fabric that is good for stuffing around your neck and in the opening of your coat or jacket.

The photo is not so good. I used two skeins and joined them at the finish line with mattress stitch as I liked the naturally shaped starting row caused by the pattern. It gave it two lobes that eliminated the need for any fringe. Left unblocked it had a nice, rumpled look. I will do a similar scarf for myself with another leaf lace pattern. I got her pattern from Jimmy Beans wool website under the title “Twin Leaf Beaded Scarf Free Knitting Pattern“. Here it is in case it’s not there any more. There’s a pic there of it done “normal” size.

Abbreviations

• CO – Cast On
• Dec – Decrease
• DD – (Double Decrease) Sl 2 sts together knitwise, k1, pass 2 sl sts over k st-2 sts dec.
• P – Purl
• PB – Place Bead, slide bead up next to the needle and knit stitch with bead ending up on RS of work (on DD, PB, on k st, on SK2P, PB on k st)
• RS – Right side
• SK2P – Slip1, knit 2 together, pass slip stitch over K2tog
• sts – Stitches
• WS – Wrong side
• yo – Yarn Over

Directions

**Pre string beads, by using a small needle, threaded with your yarn (250 or so) prior to CO

• CO 22 sts
• Row 1 P10, PB, k1, PB, k1, P10.
• ** all following WS rows P10, k2, P10.
• Row 2 K6, DD, yo, k1, yo, p2, yo, k1, yo, SK2P, k6.
• Row 4 K4, DD, k1, [yo, k1] twice, p2, k1, [yo, k1] twice, SK2P, k4.
• Row 6 K2, DD, k2, yo, k1, yo, k2, p2, k2, yo, k1, yo, k2, SK2P, k2.
• Row 8 PB, DD, k3, yo, k1, yo, k3, p2, k3, yo, k1, yo, k3, PB, SK2P.
• ** Repeat rows 1-8 until desired length. Bind Off.

I also did a couple of scarves for my older niece Jaimie and her Husband Morris, my first big cable projects. Here’s the (crappy) pic. I need a better camera.

They are done in Thick and quick Oatmeal and Wheat. I think I need to block the one on the right as the two cables make it curl back too much. I’m tempted to rip it out and redo it on larger needles to make it bigger and more relaxed. I used US17 needles.

I also did a piano keyboard scarf for my brother but I’m waiting for him to send me good pics of it so I can post them here. The scarf turned out great and was pretty easy to do. Stay tuned. Happy Gnu Ear.

I made this scarf recently for a gift and it turned out great. This is a squishy, loose-knit scarf and the pattern is reversible, and looks good for a man or woman depending on the color you use. You may be able to finish it in three hours or less.

There is another, newer free pattern with a hat here http://knitforbrains.net/patterns/fast-knit-manly-geometric-hat-and-scarf-but-she-likes-it-too-free-pattern/ and a Faux Cable hat here http://knitforbrains.net/?p=960

By the way, sorry I haven’t posted much lately here. I grew a handlebar moustache this summer (2010) and have been doing a lot of blogging for that at www.handlebarmoustachelife.com. Take a look.

For this scarf use just one skein of Lion Brand Thick and Quick Yarn or another yarn just as thick and long (108 yards or 98 meters) – or even multiple strands of thinner yarn, on 15mm thick needles (US size number 19) for a ~5 foot scarf about 5.5 inches wide with no fringe.

I did this one with a simple looped cast-on of 12 stitches so followed the pattern in sets of 4. You could make it wider but the scarf would be shorter if only using one skein. If you are using all wool you can make a nice invisible splice of the yarn – looks like no break at all – and add more for length or width increases, but I used just one skein and got a nice scarf good for cool nights. It would be very suitable as a muffler to fill in around the neck to keep someone warm. I like the squishy-ness of it and will make a similar one for myself when all this darn knitting for gifts is done.

The pattern is simple. I’ve heard it called a dragon scale stitch. It forms a pattern of right triangles that have great texture due to the proximity of knit and purl stitches above, below, left and right in the grid. You have to pay attention or you can easily get mixed up. Once you get a repeat done you can use it as reference for the next set of rows in the pattern.

I actually tested this pattern that I typed and had written it all backwards at first, so now what is below is correct. Again, once you get a couple sets of rows done you can use them for reference as to what you do next rather than having to read the pattern constantly. Just be sure you are building your triangles in the right direction if you are doing it by sight.

You might balk at the pattern because it switches form purl to knit a lot, but I did it with portuguese knitting style and it wasn’t a problem. The texture is rich and looks great.

OOPS! I originally posted this with “repeat three times” instead of the correct “repeat two times”. Sorry.

You can alter the pattern if you like by adding stitches to each repeat and rows to match, so it could be 5 stitches by 5 rows instead of the 4 and 4 I have here, but write it out and test it, of course. You can also make a wider scarf by adding another block of 4 and cast on 16 using the same row by row instructions below, but it will use more than one skein of Thick and Quick – or make a shorter scarf.

Cast on 12

Row 1: K12

Row 2: *K1, P3*, repeat two times.

Row 3: *K2, P2*, repeat two times.

Row 4: *P3, K1*, repeat two times.

Row 5: P12

Row 6: P12

Row 7: *K3, P1*, repeat two times.

Row 8: *K2, P2*, repeat two times.

Row 9: *K1, P3*, repeat two times.

Row 10:  K12

I hope this might help you with some last minute gift needs. It’s pretty easy on the fingers with the large yarn and needles. I was getting sore doing another scarf with the same yarn on size 15 needles. Happy Holidays!!!!

Here’s another, crappier picture of the texture.

Below are two videos sent to me by my penpal Larisa. She knits socks using 5 crochet hooks instead of DPNs and it’s pretty fast. Very cool idea. I hope you can pick up the idea from the videos. I bet of you could keep track you could do patterns with this method. The videos require Quicktime to be installed on your computer. The video will take a couple minutes to download.

Fast sock knitting with crochet hooks.

Hook Knitting Detail Video

I know that’s backwards, but I couldn’t resist.

I got my ball winder from knitpics.com the other day and it’s pretty cool. Very affordable at just 19.99. I didn’t have any skeins I wanted to ball up yet so I turned its fury on a scarf I crocheted back in May before I decided to get into knitting. It was the bulky Wool-ease in a sort of oatmeal color. The scarf didn’t excite me, just done in alternating rows of dc done in the back loop. It had an interesting accordion like texture but seeing it was 105 degrees outside I was not too attached to it. I decided to canibalize it for a cossack hat and so threw it to the hungry ball winder.

The top of the winder has a sort of notch to hold the start of the yarn but it’s not cut right for a bulky yarn. Once I got it started it made short work of the scarf. I held it to the floor with a foot and just wound away. The ball winder is designed to put more distance between the turns of the yarn than I would have thought. As you can see in the picture it’s not closely wound. So the ball was bigger than perhaps necessary, and being bulky yarn it turned into a ball that was a little too large for the winder to finish.

It was crochet; it had to be destroyed.

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So now I have a very cool ball of yarn to turn “reinyarnate” into a hat. (Read about technique below…)

Proof of Reinyarnation

There is a bit of a technique to using a ball winder. One thing I find is that if I don’t control the incoming yarn it will flop about a lot and the ball will be kind of loose and larger when done. So what I do is take a small piece of fabric and hold it loosely around the strand of yarn so that it keeps a very mild tension on the line. This produces a somewhat smaller ball and deters the yarn from tangling in the wire yarn guide.

Another thing I do is put the source skein or ball in a shoebox or paper bag on the floor. Backing up a bit: I clamp my ball winder to the back of a chair and put the source yarn on the floor below it. So with the source in a bag or box it won’t travel all over the room.

And sometimes I will put the source on a vertical paper towel holder if I can get the rod through the ball/skein easily. This helps more with oblong skeins you buy at craft stores as when they are being unwound they can flop about a lot in the bag or box. Don’t expect them to actually turn on the towel holder, and at a certain point you will have to deal with the last bit of yarn flopping about oddly anyway.

I find the ball winder very handy, and use it to rewind balls for projects that I’m restarting, or when I’m done with part of a ball, as the ball becomes squishy when you pull from the center and it’s nice to put it back in good order for storage or further use. And you can in many cases, of course, rewind and rip out at the same time, straight back to the ball.