Yop 24 - It's all an illusion

I have learned a new knitting technique and I am obsessed with it. Illusion knitting!

From the front it looks like this:




From an angle this appears:



So I made a second for myself and of course it had to be a hummingbird (my totem),




and a third, fourth and fifth that I can't show you dear readers until after Christmas.

I can make a pot-holder/dish cloth size in two evenings. It is a great way to use up the cotton and hemp I have in my stash.

I have also started another double-knitting project, but I can't show you, you've got it, until after Christmas.

My apologies (again) to my sweater. I have finished all the decreases but have about an inch or so to knit before I bind off the sleeves.

Every day I have been knitting my four rows of my Project Peace cowl. There are over 20,000 knitters working on knitting peace into the world.
I have figured that I will have enough stash to complete all 21 repeats alternating between the red and grey. I will finish the i-cord edging with leftover yarn from my sweater.

As I knit the pattern which is slip, purl, purl....I repeat to myself Love, Peace, Peace. It helps. With every stitch it helps.

Here is my progress as of day 11:



I attended my knit group's annual Christmas party on Thursday. We swap secret Santa gifts, donate something knitted to a charity, and share good food and company. I received a wonderful bag that is perfect for my drop spindle, my extra bobbin and my extra small whorl.



I also won a door prize - Kate Davies Book of Haps. A wonderful book about Scottish haps (shawls), with history, anecdotes and of course patterns and so in the new year, when I am no longer stash busting, I want to make some of the haps from this book. I am going to start with the Tree of Life which is documented in the book and I found the pattern on Ravelry as Cloud Drift, and then I will continue with other patterns from the book. I am so excited.

As an aside to my Year of Projects update - I want to take a moment to talk about the magic of Christmas and my belief in Santa Claus.

This year, as it is many years, I didn't feel I had the resources to tackle Christmas. Some years it was about the money, some years it was more about the feeling, or lack of feeling.

And every year, a job appears, something happens that makes Christmas come and I am ready for it. Happy for it. Blessed by it.

This year was no different. I wasn't going to go to the Christmas party. I hadn't made a gift, and I didn't have anything to donate. It was easier to just bow out.

However, my angels, literally, clearly had another idea. I found the angel illusion cloth pattern and quickly knit it up as a present. I dug out the two pairs of socks I had on the needles since the beginning of October and quickly finished them for the donation box.

My excitement with the illusion knitting got me thinking about two presents I could knit, and then a third presented itself as a KAL (knit-a-long) that just happened to be an illusion knit as well. And since I was working with all my cotton and hemp leftovers I started another double-knit zodiac pot-holder which will be the perfect gift for a certain someone.

This weekend I went to Whistler to help friends with their three children. When I got home from a very snowy l o n g drive, my daughter, my Christmas elf, had started to decorate the living room, and kitchen and even the bathroom with Christmas lights, and candles and knick-knacks. Her husband had dinner ready for us. The house looked and smelled heavenly.

So yes, Christmas is coming. And I will be ready.

Yes, Mary-Anne, there is a Santa Claus.

I have always believed it.

I always will.