Santa’s Helpful Gift List
What’s Happening?
Every day I get another email reminding me how many shopping or knitting days are left until Christmas. They’ve been coming since about June, but in greater numbers lately. I’m guessing it’s the same for you. It’s a little disturbing if I stop and think about it, but I haven’t let myself do that much this year. I knew it wasn’t going to be a big year for elaborate gift knitting.
But as the holidays approach, I know I’m going to want to include a few handmade gifts for special people. In years past, I’ve been able to reach into my handy gift stash that I stock throughout the year with fun things I find to make. However, even that well has run dry!
I’m now in the position many knitters have found ourselves in at one time or another: I need a handmade gift and I need to make it quickly!
In case you may be in a similar spot, here’s a list of quick-to-knit patterns that still qualify as thoughtful, mostly useful, and appreciated gifts:
Dishcloths
I wish I’d kept track of how many dishcloths I’ve knitted and given away as gifts. It is possible that I’ve just happened to have very polite recipients, but I’ve never had an occasion where they were not well received. They’re humble, but they’re special.
There have to be a bazillion and one patterns for dishcloths available online, but here are a few simple options:
The Checkerboard Dishcloth
The Checkerboard Dishcloth is a free pattern I wrote earlier this year as part of a tutorial on incorporating stitch patterns in your own knitting designs.
The World’s Second Easiest Dishcloth
I noted this pattern down on my old blog over 20 years ago, and had fun hunting that down this week as a trip down memory lane.
I think the recipe for the world’s easiest dishcloth is to cast on as many stitches as you feel like, knit until it feels big enough, and cast off.
In that long-ago blog post, I proposed this pattern for the World’s Second Easiest Dishcloth Pattern:
With needles near US size 7, cast on 4 stitches.
Row 1: Knit.
Row 2: Knit 2, yarn over, knit to the end of the row.
Repeat row 2 until your dishcloth is as wide as you like, about 40 stitches.
Row 3: Knit 1, k2tog, yarn over, k2tog, knit to the end of the row.
Repeat row 3 until you have 4 stitches left.
Bind off, weave in ends.
I tried something fun while making a sample this week and held some new to me novelty yarn together with regular dishcloth cotton. I find that the regular cotton does well with most scrubbing jobs, but sometimes I wish for a little extra.
It definitely feels sturdier and heftier. It’ll be interesting to see if it functions differently! In any case, including one dishcloth with extra scrubbing power could be a nice touch to a gift of dishcloths, which brings me to another of this week’s creations:
The Scrubbie
I saw this bulky, abrasive yarn at the same time I saw the yarn above (both at my local Hobby Lobby), and thought I’d see what I could do with it, too. I came up with the following pattern:
With needles near US size 10, cast on 17 stitches.
Row 1: Knit.
Row 2 (right side): K2, *(K,yo,k)in same stitch, k2, repeat from * to end of row.
Row 3: K2, *P3, K2, repeat from * to end of row.
Row 4: Knit.
Row 5: K2, *P3tog, K2, repeat from * to end of row.
Repeat rows 1-5 4 more times, bind off, weave in ends.
This pattern gives you a little texture in some bobbles and some garter ridges. I’m thinking they may pay off in scrubbing power. If you try the pattern, I’d love to hear how it works for you!
I’ll eventually put these two patterns on the free resources page on the website, but I didn’t want to wait until I had that done to make them available. Those countdown emails just keep coming, don’t they?
Monster Chunks
If you have young people on your gift list, or those who are young at heart, or maybe those who need an infusion of fun in their lives, you might consider whipping up one or more of these:
Rebecca Danger designed these adorable Monster Chunks and has shared the pattern for them at no charge through Ravelry. They are quick to make, are a terrific use of yarn scraps, and are wonderfully fun. I used this pattern to teach a children’s knitting class and it went over very well. My own family made and received many of these little guys as well. They’re so cute!
If you are making these for a young child, be sure to use child safety eyes. The other feature we often added was a bit of “hair” coming straight out of the top of the head. I made it when I secured the feet/toes at the bottom of the body and pulled the end of the tails through the stuffing. I pulled all the tails through the same point at the top of the head and then trimmed it to the length I wanted. Sometimes it amounted to just one strand, but it seemed to add a lot of character!
Earwarmers
Earwarmers are such versatile gifts. It doesn’t matter if you need a gift for an athlete, an outdoors fan, a sports fanatic, a fashionista, or a conservative no-frills dresser. You can warm that person’s ears. Here are a few free patterns I found for easy reference:
These are all knit with worsted or larger size yarn, so they’ll knit up quickly.
Hopefully one or more of these free patterns will help you add some homemade touches to your gifting this holiday season. And if you’re like me, you can use them to build up that gift stash for upcoming gifting occasions.
What am I learning?
I am brushing off the rust and dust on some old skills as preparations are getting more serious for the Beast to Blanket class.
I reacquainted myself with my drop spindle and my spinning wheel this week, and was happy to discover that we’d all survived the moves and passage of time with all our parts and skills relatively intact. We can still make yarn together, and it made me very happy.
Greg and I are working out better ways for my students to make their own drop spindles than the method I used with my last class. In the past, I’ve made drop spindles with CDs, but I didn’t love their weight or how they slipped around. This week we made one with a pre-made wooden wheel and another with a trailer ramp door bumper. Both look like they’ll work well.
You can also see the peg loom blanket on the bottom left. It’s off the loom now and will serve as a good demonstration piece for the students of peg loom weaving.
It’s really exciting seeing the class plans coming together!
What am I Knitting?
I’ve had a little time to work on both the Clapotis and the Walker’s Ridge Pullover this week. I’m well into the first color change on my Clapotis and I’ve separated for the sleeves on the sweater. I got a little distracted during the latter procedure and cast on a third small section for a third underarm. And then I was surprised when my stitch count was off for the last section. Imagine!
All is well and currently anatomically correct.
What’s Up With Mr. Darcy the Sheep?
Mr. Darcy has fallen a bit behind on his correspondence. In his defense, there’s been a good bit of upheaval at Pemberley, what with all the comings and goings lately. Very small humans are constantly making astounding amounts of noise. Cows seem to come and go on a daily basis. Some days he gets to play in new fields. Sometimes people decide to take his wool away. It’s a lot. Sometimes the only solution is to put your head in a bucket.
What are you working on today?
Happy knitting!
Kiersten J
