Mopping up

A few loose ends to tie up before heading into 2010 (can you believe it?! I remember when I was a child thinking that the 21st Century was so far away and now we’re done with the first decade of it!)

I made (with some difficulty due to illness) a pair of Dashing wrist-warmers for my brother

Here he is modelling them in a very professional style!

I used some very “inexpensive” acrylic/wool aran-weight yarn right up until 8 rounds before the end of the second mitt when I ran out! I quickly dived into my stash and came up with some acrylic camo-coloured DK-weight that 2Paw sent me a while back and made the best of it.

I’ve been reliably informed that Americans don’t “do” Christmas cake (the mind, it boggles) so I took some photos of it decorated and on of it sliced and ready to be eaten

Decorated.

I made a pile of snow balls from icing and made it look like Father Christmas was throwing one! The top was done to look like a snow drift and I create icicles to hang down the sides.

The cake itself is a Dundee cake (a light fruit cake with raisins, currants, mixed peel and cherries) covered with marzipan (almond paste) and royal icing.

As the year started, so shall it finish …

At 5:30 am on Boxing Day I woke up rather abruptly and then spent the next hour and a half desperately trying not to be “ill”.  I assumed I got a chill on Christmas Day, but it seems to be an inner ear infection.  I’m really dizzy and feeling quite sorry for myself.  I’m currently consuming fruit tea with ginger and honey in it every few hours and that really does seem to work to alleviate the symptoms for a while.  One thing I’ve discovered is that when I’m knitting and watching the TV I flick my eyes up and down a lot.  Can’t do that at the moment, so I’m either watching or knitting, not both. It’s driving me a bit loopy (who’d tell, I know) and I’ve manage to get a doctor’s appointment this very afternoon.

And onwards

The new year will bring me unfinished objects, more long-planned crafting projects and new yarn bought with my Christmas money.

Free pattern: Chess Set

This has been floating around since Christmas 2005, so I thought it was about time I shared it!

This is a super-simple scarf and wrist-warmers set suitable for men or women of any gender (!) and it knits up really quickly.

I used 2 balls Lana Grossa Multicot (60% cotton, 40% acrylic; 80 m/88 yds per 50g). NOTE: if you make the wristwarmers larger or the scarf longer, you will probably need more yarn.

Possible yarn substitutes: Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran, Rowan Scottish Tweed Aran, ggh Samoa, Lion Brand Cotton Ease, or any yarn that knits up at 4 sts per inch (2.5 cm) over stocking stitch. NOTE: the yarn is knit up at a slightly looser tension than stated on the ball band. This is intentional.

Ravelry:

Also available as a free PDF download from Ravelry. Use the above link to obtain the pattern.

Pattern is in a PDF format and its size is 172KB

PATTERN LINK – Knit away!

NOTE: this is Version 3 which fixes a mistake with the written instructions in previous versions. The charts are correct.