The Christmas Knitting Project: 2020. Now Completed and Shipped!

 Late last week I went to the post office with two bags of boxed Christmas knitting.  It made me smile all day to have completed them and put them in the mail. I know at least three recipients have received their boxes.  This makes me happy.

So this is the big reveal!  We had gnomes for Christmas again this year.  These gnomes were very different.  This is the first gnome ornament I made for the grandchildren:

My thought was that it was very cute.  However the arms seemed rather weird to have on a Christmas tree ornament so I removed these arms (took a bit, too, since I had REALLY attached them well!) and did not knit any more arms.  UNTIL...the family gnomes!

May I say I am so sorry to be such a poor photographer?  You don't get a very good view of them.  (As I wrote this last I was thinking about what makes my pictures so poorly set up.  I decided on the instant that it is the fat.  It is hard to squat down or throw myself on the floor for a better angle.  BUT this is changing!  I was able to cut my toenails last week, something that I had hired out for some months.  It really makes me happy to report that eating whole plants and next to no fat is having a very salubrious effect on my body and my spirit!)

This is a rocking chair full of the Christmas gnome ornaments ready to pack up and send.

Each gnome was different and was colored at the request of the grandchild who told me their two favorite colors.

This project is now complete.  On to the next!  (and there is quite a queue of "nexts"!)

Mission Afghan: Completed!!!

Finally, a year after starting it, the mission afghan is done.

It turns out that I had gotten rather sick of this knitting project and just wanted it done so I did not continue on with stripes at the ends to make it longer as I had planned.  I just picked up stitches along the long side, knitted in garter stitch three plus garter ridges then bound off.  The ends were 140 live stitches on threads on each end so I picked up along the gray garter borders then knitted the live stitches, ending up with picking up the other long side garter ridges then knit three more garter ridges and bound off.  Did this on both ends then started weaving in the ends.

At this point I will make a confession. every other square had four long ends to weave in.  After a couple of rows of weaving in I was done with the weaving in.  Well, it was late at night and I wanted that sucker DONE.  So...what any lazy knitter might do, I just tied off the yarn with very sturdy knots and cut the extra yarn.  Since it is not a garment and the only one who will be annoyed by the knots is me, I decided it was okay.  We will find out if it is really okay the first time, or maybe second time, I have to wash it.  If the ends work loose, then it was a problem.  By then I will have probably made another blanket and will let this one go.

Happily unconscious unsuspecting napper.  I guess the blanket was successful.

Things I learned with this project:  how to make small parts into a large whole with no seams.  Bingo!  Sewing together is not my cup of tea.

Something I WANT to learn:  how to weave in the ends as you go.  Now that I think of it,  if I look at the Philosopher's Wool website and watch their videos again, I will be reminded how to do that.  When I was doing stranding years ago I remember it worked great.  I just didn't think of it at the beginning of this project.  Too bad...