Knitting, my holiday hobby

One complaint -- perhaps the only complaint -- I have with sewing is that it doesn't exactly lend itself to holiday socializing. You can't really put your machine in the living room when the whole family is over and chug away at projects while everyone else talks and eats chocolate covered pretzels. For one thing, if I try and talk too much while I'm sewing I usually mess something up. For another thing, the chocolate always ends up all over my project. And then there's the issue of machine volume, which for some machines (like my serger) is enough to put everyone off conversation altogether.

We go up north every fall with a bunch of Mr Rae's friends and their spouses and families and each year I try to take a knitting project with me. This year I started this cute little sweater for Clementine and continued working on it in Florida last week, and now this week in Seattle. As you can see it's still in the works. It's fun to create something handmade without having to shut myself in a sewing room.I'm not a full-time knitter. One disadvantage of restricting knitting to just a fall/holiday hobby is that I basically have to teach myself to knit again every year. Purl Bee's tutorials (right sidebar) help me with this, but it's kindof like riding a bike; once I pick it up and do a few practice swatches, it starts to come back.

One thing that has really helped me is when I ask for knitting patterns for Christmas or birthday gifts, I also try to ask for the YARN to make the project too. This really makes a huge difference for me when it comes to starting a project. If I have to go out and procure the yarn it's way less likely to happen. I get so confused at yarn stores.

This particular pattern is the Yoked Cardigan by Knitbot and the yarn is this Plymouth Tweed. Maybe someday I'll get around to putting it on my Ravelry page (not even going to link it, it's so pathetic), but sometimes I just get sick of keeping up all of my social media sites, don't you? I really like this pattern though because it's knit top-down on circular needles, so there are NO SIDE SEAMS. The thought of not having to stitch it up at the end is divine. I'll be sure to show you how it turns out.I also have this Jane Richmond pullover pattern(shown above) that I really want to make, but no yarn yet. So we'll see if that happens this year or not. And then there's my "Someday when I'm a knitting superstar" board on Pinterest where I dream about all the fabulous things I would knit if I had the time/ability. How about you? Is there a knitting pattern on your brain right now? Is it started or just a daydream yet?By the way, I really do enjoy sewing and socialization together when it's in the form of a SE Michigan Crafter Meetups (and there's another one coming up, just next week: December Meetup!). There's a big room full of machines and a bunch of crafty people and snacks, so it's tons of fun. If you'll be around SE Michigan next Thursday night, let us know you can come!