You´ve Come a Long Way, Baby

The YouTube video below showed up recently on one of my knitting groups from Facebook. It is simply hilarious. A young man by the name of Brandon Farris is bored and decides to use a video to teach himself how to knit. The video he selects is well done giving him all the details he needs to cast on and knit. Like any of us learning a new skill, he struggles to keep up and has to stop and start the video several times, But it is the narrative he adds to the instructions that makes the whole thing so precious. I laughed out loud a number of times while I watched. Please invest 13 minutes in watching this guy. If you don´t knit his accent and quirky comments about the process will be your reward. If you do knit it will remind you how far your knitting has come because this is how we all looked as we began our own knitting adventures.

Brandon Farris vlog

Here are a few photos of more advent calendar ornaments.

Bluebird of Happiness by Sara Elizabeth Kellner. Mine has a rather short tail.

Little Christmas Tree Wreath by Magdalena Rosianiec. I used the pattern as a guide, three I-cords were knit separately and sewn together and finally braided. The bow was made with three rather than five stitches and French knots were added to make small yellow ornaments on the wreath.

Tiny Toque by Kat at Just Crafty Enough. I added the string and pom pom and used a small candle holder to make the toque three dimensional. Hopefully I put enough spray starch on it to hold that shape for some time to come.

Xmas Pudding Bauble by Amanda Berry with my own hand spun brown pudding yarn.

It is taking about a day and one-half to produce an item. I should be able to finish the remaining 17 ornaments by December 1. (She says with so much confidence now.)

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Anatomy of a Sock

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All four swatches were made. Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook. It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares. That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute. (Don't know what I'm talking about here? Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size. In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken. Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer. This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed. You will note the size ...

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