Christmas Advent Socks

Over Christmas I had two yarn advent calendars. The second was by Bluebell Yarns. I could have added these yarns to the blanket I was making with the other advent calendar. However, this yarn had a completely different texture to it. It felt a little tougher and so I decided to use them for scrap socks. Each new yarn would be added to the socks as I opened them so that I wouldn't know the outcome until that last yarn is opened. I managed to make two pairs from them. One for myself and one for my sister.

Mine came first. Only a few of these colours I would actually pick out for myself. It forced me to experiment with colour and I actually quite like them. The colours are muted enough that they don't really clash with each other.

My favourite pair is actually my sister's. I love the colours that came out for her. The mustard is my least favourite colour. However, it adds pop to the socks and is one of my favourite things about this pair.

This is also a good way of using up scrap sock yarns. I highly recommend it. The downside is all the ends you have to sew in. Part of the joy of knitting socks is that there are so few. However, you have two ends with every change of colour. This is what took me so long to pull them out of my WIP back to finish. Persevere though as it is wort it.

The last parcel produced 50g of this lovely green yarn. I plan to get some cream sock yarn and use them together. And yes, for another pair of socks. I'll finish some more projects before I do that though.

I would definitely get another yarn advent calendar. It's a lot of fun. I have actually signed up for one for this year although it's a little different from last years and starts 16th Decemember rather than the 1st. You'll have to wait for that one though.

December WIP

This months WIP is a sockfest. While I haven't been blogging I have been crafting away. In November's What's New post I mentioned that I had two yarny advent calendars. Both from indie dyers and both sock yarn based. The one from Bluebell yarn I decided to use the yarn to knit up some socks. This is out of my comfort zone as I have no control of how the colours create the sock. My sister believes this exercise will be good for me. Initially I planned to work on one sock at a time but the stripes were too large so I decided to make the socks match. I knitted both socks alongside each other and counted used 15 rounds per stripe. The result is the socks above and I have photographed it with the yarn that will be the toe. By the time you read this my socks will be finished and all the ends sewn in. Today's yarn will start a pair for my sister. I worked out that I will have enough for her since she has much smaller feet.

I also made a start on December's socks. I haven't had as much time to spend on them and I am hoping that I will not fail my monthly sock project at the last hurdle. This yarn is so lovely to knit with and the pattern is fairly simple and addictive. If it wasn't for my other projects I am sure I would be almost finished by now. Although I will be doing a new heal (new for me) and I am slightly worried about managing it.

 

For my third and final pair of socks I am working on my sisters birthday socks. I designed the pattern myself and had to do a bit of tweaking and started again a couple of times. I have one sock down and I am a good way into the second. Lorraine's birthday is in two days and she has been spending a lot of time over at mine so I'm not sure I will meet the deadline. Thankfully I have my sisters small feet and the fact that they are ankle socks on my side.

Lastly, I thought I would show you what I am doing with the second advent calendar. Another activity which takes me out of my comfort zone. This one is from Lisa of For the Love of Yarn. Lisa sent a pattern for a shawl along with her calendar. I had planned on using it but struggled to follow it. My excuse was that I had little time between work and studying and so I went for another option. I decided to use each mini skein as they came to create a granny square lap blanket. I'm really not used to not planning out my colours but I'm enjoying it. This is the blanket up to date. Today's colour is a red which I will look forward to adding. I don't think the yarn will make the blanket as big as I would like which is okay. I have plenty of mini skeins in my collection which I can use to add to it. Think I will have to put them into a bag and use pot luck to pick them out so that I continue with the random colour theme.

What's New in November

Monthly boxed items is a bit of a hit just now. I did do Birchbox for a while but stopped when the products became very similar each month. I still recommend it but I got a little bored with it. I also started a new one called bookishly. Each month I am sent a classic book along with some tea. None of these are craft related and so not really relevant here. Little Box of Crochet is another that I have just recently joined. I have been a follower of this product and the person behind it both on Instagram and facebook. I'm not the most confident when it comes to crochet which put me off joining. Then an opportunity came up to purchase one of her boxes as a one off on etsy and I took it. As soon as it arrived I signed up for the monthly club. If you like little fun projects then this is most definitely for you. You can sign up via her website here.

I have also started a bullet journal. Good way for organising everything for an organise freak like me. I have been aware of bullet journals for quite a while now thanks to pinterest but only started it myself the last few months. The good thing about this is that it can be as basic or as decorative as you like and it can be adapted for whatever you need it for. As a result I have two, one for work and study and another for everything else. The originator has a website with some videos which are worth watching if you are interested. You can find this here but I will be doing a full post on it at some point in the future.

This is one of those things that I had meant to post long ago and well, forgot. As a result, I'm afraid it's too late for people to sign up for this although perhaps not for next year. I love an advent calendar and I have always admired those ones that contained something other than a chocolate. Last year I got my sister a lego calendar (I got her Lindt chocolate one this year as she said she would prefer chocolate). I was tempted to get the yankee candle calendar but I didn't like most of the scents within it. Would have been a waste of money. So this year one of my favourite crafting people (Lisa of For the Love of Yarn) had sent out a sign up for her advent calendar. A yarny one! I of course signed up and it is here on my mantlepiece patiently waiting. I'm afraid Lisa's isn't the only one I signed up for. Bluebell yarn is another indie dyer and I signed up for hers too. The hard part will be to not open each of the little parcels up ahead of time.  Will power is needed here.

I have also bought my first Christmas decorations in my new flat. I got these from another seller on etsy, Designosaur Yeah. As the title may suggest all of her makes are dinosaurs. I bought a bracelet from her for my sister and she loved it. These little dinosaur Christmas baubles are now a favourite of mine.

Lastly I have started using this book. It was a gift from my mum one Christmas and I have only now put it to use. I've tried out a few recipes and I plan to review it in the next week or two. So look out for that. If you can't wait you can get your copy here.