Christmas knits!

 I don't know about you, but I love Christmas! It's my favorite holiday! I love gifts, I love baking, I love singing, I love mint chocolate everything, I love everything about it! Exclamation!

And I love knitting things for people I love.  Last year I made sweaters for the boys:

 

The last two were technically hand-me downs, the arms were too small for Zac.  Perfect for my brother though!

Hazel was not left out, she has several sweaters that she never wears, and gobs of socks.  I think I made her socks instead.

Do I have a picture? I do not.

This year I decided to go little more low-key and just make the kids socks. 

The ones on the left are for Toby.  They are toe-up with a contrasting heel, because I only had a 50 gram ball.  I didn't worry about matching, but I did worry about making sure they were big enough.

The ones on the right are  Hazel's and I've talked about them before.  They were knit top down, with a heel flap and gusset.  I find that it doesn't really mess up the striping too badly, even in socks knit for myself.  Your mileage may very.  I did end up pulling out about a foot of the end of the heel turn yarn so the instep would begin with white instead of orange (or pink), and it worked out nicely.

I actually bought a sweater quantity for a new sweater for Zac way back in the summer, but did I knit it? no I did not.  I got about 3 inches past the bottom ribbing and haven't looked at it since.  He'll get it eventually.

I also got myself a hat kit last week.  I meant to save it for After Christmas knitting. but I did not.  I knit it right up! 

 

...and then I frogged it when it turned out *inches* too big and reknit.  Took much less time with fewer stitches.  It's the 21-color slouch, and it is such a lovely woolen spun hat, so it's light but warm.  And you may think, my, that's quite a few ends you have there to weave in.  nope! I spit spliced the lot of them.

Spit splicing, or Split Splicing as it's normally known as, is a cool technique for non-superwash yarns.  You pull out half of the plies for about two inches of the ends that you're planning to join, add a gob of spit, lay the ends on top of each other on your palm and rub your hands together.

This felts them together and makes it so you have no ends to weave in later! It's a bit gross, but fun!

And that about does it for Christmas knitting.  I only ever went overboard once, and that was a few winters ago when I knit mittens for everyone, including Zac's parents, since we visited them for the holidays, but I started early and got them done before December even started.

I'm hoping my beading needle gets here in the next few days, and if so next time I'll be back with another Finished Object! My cross stitch lady! I might include a few past cross stitches, too!

thanks for reading!