Today I finished my Christmas knitting (and, yes, that’s for presents for Christmas 2011, not Christmas 2012).
I am a fairly disorganised person (my family would say “very disorganised”) and towards the end of last year, for various reasons, life just got completely away from me. So much so that I didn’t even start thinking about Christmas till about the middle of December and, as mentioned above, have just finished knitting all the presents that I decided to make. Fortunately, my family is used to this state of affairs and appreciate handmade gifts whenever they get them!
Amazingly, I did get my Christmas cards out on time:
They used my mini Christmas stocking pattern, hung on some embroidery thread using a mini clothes peg with ink-stamped text.
Next up on my Christmas crafting was my cake. (Ignore the cutting board, please, my disorganisation stretched to forgetting to buy an actual cake board.) I use Nigella Lawson’s recipe from “How to be a domestic goddess” and this year went for a simple white-on-white theme with edible ball bearings.
Starting on the presents, Steven and I used our new chutney-making skills and this recipe to make some home-made chutney. We kept a couple of jars for ourselves and I can highly recommend the recipe!
We also made a couple of jars of mulling syrup (which we failed to take pictures of) from this recipe. We didn’t keep any of this but it did look really pretty in the bottles and made a really nice gift with some wine or cider and a couple of attractive glasses.
Finally, the knitted presents.
First up, a replacement Henry scarf for my Dad. I had sworn never to knit another one of these. I love the finished scarf but the slip stitch pattern takes forever and for some reason I make more mistakes when knitting it than in anything else I’ve ever knitted. However, Dad loved the first one so much that when I found out he’d left it on a train, I knew I’d have to knit a replacement eventually. This is absolutely definitely the last one ever though!
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My Mum also got a scarf (or will when I get around to posting these) but this one was a bit of a cheat since she’s getting the sample of my Hill House Scarf.
Last but not least were some fingerless mitts for my Gran.
I was looking a quick, simple, elegant knit to keep her warm since she’s always cold and the “M is for …” mitts from the Fall 2011 KnitCircus were just perfect. Yarn details and other project notes for these and the Henry scarf will go up on my Ravelry projects page soon.
So, now that 2011 is dealt with, bring on 2012 (or at least the 11 remaining months of it)!