Month: December 2025

Christmas Rabbit Hole

Yes, I fell in the knitting-for-Christmas rabbit hole. So far I have knit 12 mittens, 1 pair of DK socks, almost finished 1 pair of fingering socks and am now onto a couple pairs of fingerless mitts.

This mittlet …

… is from the Need An Accessory Book by Cabin Fever. The team for this book was me (bottom right), Lyn (middle) and Alana (top). I added a stitch pattern because I had bits of left-over fingering wool by WaxwingYarn.

I do struggle with dpns (my fav for small circumference knitting) and colour work so I figure it’s good to have more practice.

This morning I worked on these and ta, da, here they are ready to have the ends sewn in and go for a bath. Just in time, phew!

This is the pattern I made up. There is a plain navy round in between the repeats of the pattern where I weave out the colour I’m finished with and at the end of the round, weave in the new colour.

On to the last pair of mittlets. This one is a Cat Bourdhi pattern calledShort Zen Farmer’s Mitts, which I am knitting with 2 fingering weight yarns held together to make a worsted weight yarn. They are knit sideways in garter stitch. Just lovely. I have knit many pairs of these over the years and love, love, love it.

I hope your holiday season is joyful and relaxing. I especially look forward to the in between week, otherwise known as Cast-On Week!

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb, Lyn and the cabinfever crew

Gauge-Free and Any Gauge patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Debgemmell435 on youtube

The Christmas Dither

I had decided that I wouldn’t make December into that last-minute-knitting-gifts-down-to-Christmas-Eve sort of month. Then I though I would knit one gift.

I remembered that the last time I saw a pair of mittens on this family member they were rather ratty looking so obviously that person needs a new pair. Then I thought of another worthy recipient so I cast on a second pair of mittens. Then there was someone else and … you get the picture.

When I say a pair of mittens I mean 4 mittens, one pair smaller than the other so you can stuff them inside each other for extra warmth. The outer mitten (left) is 4 stitches bigger. That makes it an inch bigger with my gauge of 4 sts = 1″. The thumb is 2 stitches bigger than the small mitten.

Any Gauge Mittens, modification: worked the increases at the sides of the mitten top, every round.

Onward to the second set today. Where’s my calendar, how many days do I have left???

Just yesterday my grandson asked for red and green Christmas socks. Can I add them to my list?

My desk looks like this. My brain feels the same.

And would you believe it, in the back of my mind is a couple of Christmas week cast ons. Am I crazy?

Meanwhile, my spinning is getting a little better. I am encouraged. Some day I may spin something I could actually knit with.

Are you also in the holiday knitting count down? How’s it going?

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the cabinfever crew.

Gauge-Free and Any Gauge patterns by Deb

Deb.gemmell on instagram

Debgemmell435 on youtube

Mittens

Do you Christmas knit? I can’t decide this year if I’m going to it. Although I have been playing with mittens recently and they could be presents, right?

These are done in fingering weight wool by Waxwingyarns. I started at the tip of the fingers and worked down to the wrist roughly following my Any Gauge Mittens, Top Down pattern.

How about all those yarn ends to sew in?!

I didn’t have any. Huh??

I had one navy round worked between each of the stitch patterns. On that round I would weave in the colour I had just finished working with over the first 7 or 8 sts of the navy round, knit the navy round to the last 7 or 8 sts, and as I knit those last stitches I would weave in the new colour for the next pattern. No ends to weave in, magic!

More mittens. These are also knit from the top down to the wrist. In this case I worked 4 increases every round (1 increase at one side edge of palm and then on the other side and same for the back of the hand) until I had the number of stitches I wanted.

I’m working on doing decreases in the top section of the palm side so they conform to how we hold our hands while walking. The palm will be slightly narrower than the back of my hand.

I also knit my thumbs as a large I-cord.

Once I add the thumb in I decrease every round along the lifeline on the hand down to the wrist.

The goofy thumb is right there. I take a crochet hook and hook up all those ladders. This works great for any mittens knit with Aran, heavy worsted or chunky weight yarn.

After being hooked up.

I also finished knitting the Polaris Wrap as a blanket, in sports weight wool by Briggs and Little and Lichen and Lace. I am so very pleased with this blanket. I really enjoyed the modular aspect of it. I have a lot of ends to sew in but a couple evenings will do the trick.

I have posted a new Vlog post with more information and to show you several 3 Tier Shawls I have knit.

If you’re doing Christmas knitting what are you knitting? Small things at this point in time I would suspect.

Cheers, Deb

Cabin Fever patterns by Deb & Lyn and the cabinfever crew.

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

deb.gemmell on instagram

debgemmell 435 on youtube