(Photo credit: paparutzi)

I love Christmas.  I have been known to sing Jingle Bells year round.  My husband refers to me as a HOLIDORK. People complain “its too early to think about Christmas…But me, I think of old traditions, handmade gifts, people being consciously friendly for the season (when I really wish people would be consciously friendly year-round).

It also helped that I used to do craft shows and needed to have my Christmas items ready before August for judging and build up my inventory before the fall shows started!

For many years, I have a little competition with myself as to how many gifts I can make each year vs how little I buy.  I also build up a small inventory of knitted items for my son’s school “Children’s Craft Sale”.  On Ravelry there’s a group that shares the trials & tribulations of gift knitting: Some preplan a year in advance, while others leave it to the last minute to knit into the wee hours of Christmas morning…I’ve done both

I’m quite sure my sister-in-law will be ‘peeking’ but here’s a sampling of what I’ll be working on this fall:

1) The Hitchiker Scarf – This is great in a self-striping or variegated sock yarn to display more prominently than as socks on the feet!

2) The Bandana Cowl – Bulky yarn, quick knits are a must for holiday knitting!!! Plus, I may just knit this for myself..

3) The Baktus Scarf – do you sense a theme here??

4)  iPhone Sock – quick knit, leftover yarn, most people own one of these things, perfect for the school craft sale!

5) Dobby Booksock – what avid young reader wouldn’t know what this is?? Again, quick knit, leftover yarn 🙂

I’ll share more later…happy knitting!

Image via CrunchBase

As of May 24th, 2012, the #yyjstitchers met as a group at the lovely Cabin 12.  We setup a Meetup group , notified knitters on Twitter (the reason for the #), as well as posting on Ravelry forums for Vancouver Island Fibre Lovers.

I’d like to say we are a non-denominational fibre loving group – we aren’t just knitters, we have crocheters in the mix…something I have found lacking in many Stitch N Bitch groups in the area (might not be in other cities, but I find so few crocheters out to the groups).  Matter of fact, we even had 2 people drop spindling at our July meetup!

Some of the people came from Ravelry, some from Twitter, some through Meetup, and others from word of mouth…we are a community from various sources as well (again, the nondenominational theme).  We are now up to 64 Meetup members, and average 17 ‘stitchers’ attending our monthly meetups.

We are now increasing the frequency of our meetings 🙂  The lovely people at Cabin12 have agreed to let us take over the world knit/crochet/spin peacefully in their lounge on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month at Cabin 12.  They have been great hosts for us and we not only get to take over a comfy space with couches, chairs, coffee tables, we also are ‘yarnbombing‘ the place 😉

Hope to see you there!

The Ravellenic 2012 Games are nearly upon us! 

From what *I* remember, this “knitting olympics” originally started as a winter only event in 2006 by YarnHarlot.  After Ravelry was born, they ran the Summer games in 2008, and again for winter 2010.

Personally, I’ve only participated in the 2010 Ravelympics (that WAS its name then – not any longer due to a nasty letter about us knitters denigrating the games…when in reality a nice ‘please note Olympics is trademarked and you are infringing, please change your name’ would have been fine). 
But I digress…

There are various teams, but again for 2012, I’ll be competing with Team Canada.  It was great to share & chat online with fellow hockey fans ;), while we knitted & cheered.  This year Team Camada outdid themselves with compiling a list of Canadian Designers AND Canadian Yarns if you really want to challenge yourself.  We’re also trying to have groups of knitters meet for the MASS CAST ON & post photos of their cities to share with other Team Canada Knitters.  We’ll be knitting at Cabin 12, 1pm Pacific time 🙂

Not on Ravelry?  Get yourself signed up – knitters, crocheters, weavers, spinners ALL have events.  Info is here if you have a sign in, otherwise here’s a brief overview (get yourself signed up & Join Team Canada).

The Basic RULES

Our local children’s bookstore (Tall Tales Books) hosted a Knit-In on Saturday for anyone to drop in, have tea, and knit or crochet purple newborn hats in support of Preventing Shaken Baby Syndrome – the Period of Purple Crying. In the month of November, babies born in BC hospitals will receive a purple baby hat in an annual campaign to educate new parents that babies will cry during this period…a lot…

There will be another Knit In on Saturday Oct 15th, but if you can’t make the Knit-In, you can help by knitting (or crocheting) hats and dropping them off at the store anytime before Oct 19th. If you aren’t in Victoria (or even in BC), there are other locations listed on the National website

I’ve already knit a few of these patterns below, including a pamphlet I received from the Welcome Wagon baby shower 6 years ago…

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/basic-newborn-hat
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/little-cables-hat

Need more ideas?

Yeah, I got bored knitting the same hats over & over….so I came up with this – I’ll post the pattern later this week

So the original socks were a little ‘loose’ for an active 5yr old. They kept sliding down the leg (even with the reduction under the cuff). I had made 2 versions for him, and the size that ‘didn’t’ slide, actually stayed put…so I’m reposting the pattern for that size, the original one would actually work for a larger size shoe (with longer length in the foot).

Revisions coming…