A Very Crafty Christmas

Every year, my knit & crochet group does some kind of gift exchange. This year was no exception - yarn and hand-made accessories for everyone!

Last Christmas, we all exchanged yarn. You don't know who has your yarn, and they don't know who you have. Then, you have a year to make something for the person with the yarn they put in their bag for exchanging. It's so fun!

Last year, I got Lynette's bag of yarn. I was in for a challenge - it was several skeins of recycled sari silk. That is not something I typically work with it, and it was fun to figure out what to do with it.

Lynette is the "Cowl Queen" so it seemed like a cowl was the way to go. After searching around Ravelry, I finally settled on "designing" my own. I use designing in quotes because I picked a stitch pattern out of a crochet stitch dictionary, held the yarn doubled and started crocheting with a large crochet hook. It was more like a reallllly large swatch than a real design. Haha.

I seamed it at just the corner, so it would have a cool, funky shape when you wear it. Perfect for the yarn!

Melissa picked my yarn (so random, she had me the year before too and knit me a beautiful Tilt shawl). It was two skeins of Fiber Story Glow Sock. She knit me this amazing shawl. The pattern is Waiting for Rain.

Check out that short row lace. Melissa said it was so much fun that she's now knitting a second one for herself!

As for the yarn we exchanged this year, we decided we are using it selfishly. I picked Laura's bag. Yay for gradients!

It's a shawl kit from The Alpaca Yarn Company in their Paca Peds yarn. It's so soft and pretty.

It was another successful crafty Christmas! If you're knit or crochet group does a gift exchange around the holidays, I'd love to hear about it. Our group always loves trying new things!