Month: December 2025

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