Advent 2019

Hello again my dears, I hope you're all coping with the freezing weather, and you're prepared for whatever the midwinter festivities have in store for you!

We're freshly returned from Stephen's birthday holiday on the North Yorkshire coast, and getting ready for Christmas, which of course means Advent Adventures!  Buckle up sweethearts, because I've gone completely over the top crazy this year!

Yep, they won't even all fit in the photo properly, but there are 12 count-down calendars here.

This post is only about the calendars by the way, there won't be any update on my knitting progress.  That will come with the first of my Advent Updates tomorrow.

Let's tell you more about the calendars then:

No clues from the packaging here. This was a bit of an impulse purchase, because I didn't even know that this sort of thing existed.  It's meant to be a charm bracelet calendar for children, but each of the "charms" is basically a stitch marker!

My personal advent tradition started a few years ago as a means of making time and luxury for myself during a time of year that is historically very stressful, and painful, for our family.  Christmas is stressful for everyone of course, because there is so much pressure to spend more than you can afford, to visit people you perhaps don't really want to visit, to be merry and joyful, when actually you're mostly trying to keep warm in biting winds and pouring rain, finish your end of year projects at work, and somehow find time to buy the perfect present for everyone you know without leaving yourself bankrupt come January.  For our family though, we have frequently also had to deal with fresh grief, as our mam died in November 2012, Gemma and Vikki's mam, who wasn't a blood relative, but was a very close family friend, died at the end of October 2014, Trish, our step-mam died in November 2016, just 3 days after dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and the same year dad had surgery which we hoped would cure his cancer in December, only to discover that it was already too late, and his cancer would be terminal.  

At least dad didn't stick to the pattern, so we had one last Christmas with him still on good form last year, but it will still be hard to have Christmas without him this year.

Out of this, and the appearance of exciting new advent calendars containing more than just chocolate, grew Advent Indulgence.

This year I want to give a little back.  So I searched for "charity advent calendars" and discovered Advent of Change.  For every calendar you buy, 24 different charities benefit.  Each door you open will tell you who your money has gone to help.  The company makes no profit, every penny above the cost of printing and shipping goes direct to the charities.

I always do get a chocolate calendar, and Lindt is one of my favourite types of chocolate.

I had already bought the Lindt calendar, when I saw that Hotel Chocolat are doing several different calendars this year, of vary degrees of opulence, but this is their calendar for children.  It has penguins on it, and I'm lead to believe, inside it too.  I had to go to Hotel Chocolat to buy a number of presents for friends and family, and as this is the childrens calendar, it was relatively inexpensive, so being as it's full of penguins, I decided to bring it home with me.

Tea is very important to me, so of course there had to be a tea calendar.  This year I've gone for Bird and Blend, a small, British company, based in Nottingham.  I already have several of their teas, Nearly Nirvana is a particular favourite of mine.

Last year I had 2 different beauty advents, one with bath products, and one with makeup and accessories.  I've found over the course of this year that I haven't used very much of the makeup, although I have used the accessories, and I still have a number of bath fizzers left.  So I looked for a beauty calendar that includes more products that I will actually use, such as hand cream, and found this one by Cath Kidston.

Scented candles form an important part of my little indulgence ritual, and the Yankee Candle calendar is the one I've had for the last couple of years.  

I'd already bought the candle calendar when I received an email about this calendar of soy wax melts, one of which has an item of jewellery hidden inside of it!  As I know that the tealight candles only last a few hours, but I intend on being at home most of the time this December, so having 2 scented products will allow me to keep our home smelling sweetly seasonal all day. Plus, I will get a little extra surprise on one day!

The first of my yarn based advent calendars is by Made by Penguins.  I say the first, because I do have several, for a number of reasons, that I'll get to later.

Independent yarn brands usually start to advertise their advent calendar sign ups in the middle of summer, as they need to know how many mini-skeins they will need to dye long enough in advance to get them all dyed, dried, wound, packaged, and shipped in time to be opened on the 1st of December, while also keeping up with their regular workload, and any autumn fibre festivals that they're committed to doing.  

This summer, I had spare cash, an urge to comfort shop, and spectacular degrees of brain fog.  It was always going to be an interesting combination.

I can't remember when I actually ordered this, but I'm pretty sure that it was the first advent calendar I ordered.  It contains 24 x 20g 4-ply mini-skeins, plus a full sized 100g skein to open on Christmas day, and a Made by Penguins project bag.

I have literally no idea when I ordered this, because I have no memory of ordering this.  I ordered one of these as a gift for Yasmin.  I can only assume that I forgot I'd already placed the order at some point, and ordered a second one.  I was quite confused when 2 identical parcels arrived!  You see what I mean about the brain fog!

This is by Vicki Brown Designs, and it contains 24 mini-skeins.  I'm afraid I can't even remember if they're 10g or 20g, 4-ply or DK!  I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

It seems that I have a special kind of luck with online yarn giveaways.  This is the second year in a row that I've won something for Christmas from a giveaway that I entered on Instagram!  I was shocked, and overjoyed when I received the email telling me that I'd won another yarn advent calendar!

This is by Gamer Crafting, who I adore for the pin badges as much as for the yarn!  If you're a bit of a geek, identify as LGBTQ+, love gorgeous yarn, or any combination of the 3 (Or even all 3, like me!)  then you absolutely MUST visit their site!

I confess to stuffing these mystery bags into a different box than the one they arrived in, as due to an ordering error at their end, the boxes that their calendars went out in were massive!  So I found a box that once contained a teapot, but I kept because I thought it might be useful, and put all of the advent bags in the new box.

Finally, this is NOT an advent calendar!  I repeat, this is NOT an advent calendar!

This is the Homespun Wonders 12 Days of Christmas Box, which contains 12 mini-skeins to open on each of the 12 days of Christmas, plus a bag full of goodies to open on Christmas day.

Now, not everyone knows that the 12 days of Christmas actually begin on Christmas day, and continue until 12th Night, followed by Epiphany on the 6th January.  I don't know if the intention is that these mystery bags be opened in the days preceding Christmas Day, like an advent calendar, only starting on the 13th December, or if they are actually intended to be opened on the official 12 days of Christmas.  So I asked this question on social media, and by far the most popular answer was that I open these on the official 12 days of Christmas, thus following tradition, and also prolonging my days of opening little surprises until after the New year.  So that is what I'm going to do.  You won't see anything from inside these packages until Christmas day!



That's it my dears!  I'm all set for the start of my Advent Adventure of Indulgence.  I hope that you enjoy following along with me, and also enjoy whatever plans you have for the festive season.

See you tomorrow!

Nottingham Yarn Expo, and November Deadlines

Hello my dears, I hope that you're all well, and that you're managing to avoid letting the pressures of the festive season get to you.

A few years ago I decided that I would try to avoid setting myself unreasonable targets for how many people to knit for at Christmas, and how many people I would buy for, and how "Imaginative and thoughtful" those gifts should be.  I've had the rant about the issues involved with buying for the sake of buying in previous blog posts, on previous years, so I'm not going to have it again now.

However, this year I have discovered that although these changes have certainly made Christmas, and December, less stressful, and more enjoyable for me, I have managed to transfer some of those stresses to November instead!

Anyway, before we get into why that is, and all the regular stuff, I'm going to tell you all about my visit to Nottingham Yarn Expo last Sunday.

Nottingham Yarn Expo

I really like this yarn festival, because it's one of the few that is comfortably accessible to people with disabilities, with lots of space between stalls, a lift between floors, and buttons at wheelchair height to open doors.  I still have a problem with the catering, but that's a problem that I have in many places, because I can't stand in queues for any length of time.  So I have to resort of asking friends to queue for me.  I am very fortunate in having lovely friends who are happy to do this though, so thank you very much to Krissy and Nicole for standing in queues in order to provide me with tea and baked potato!

Made by Penguins

These are all mini-skeins, I didn't go totally overboard!  I mostly wanted to say hi to Lisa-Lou, who created Made by Penguins, and thank you for the lovely yarn she sent me last month.  She was even more lovely when I went to pay for the mini-skeins that I'd chosen, as she gave me this free bag, and another free mini-skein!

The 2 mini-skeins on the left are both 4-ply, and the 3 on the right are DK.

Cuddlebums

This is one of those skeins that called to me from a distance, and once I'd picked it up, I couldn't out it back down.  Cuddlebums specialises in rainbows, because who doesn't love a rainbow, but this darkened, muted, beauty is special!

Temporal Spin

No photograph can do this justice! I'd literally never heard of this yarn brand before, apparently they're quite new, but if this is anything to go by, they will do well.  A blackened rainbow, on the sparkliest yarn you've ever seen, 35% stellina!

Hey Jay

I feel like I won some kind of lottery with this little lot!  The full skein was actually from the bargain bin!  Then I chose 3 Mystery Mini-skeins, and they are beautiful!  All the purples!

Today I also learned that you can buy mystery skeins on the website!

Mad Scientist Yarns

I asked for help from the vendors to choose these yarns, because I found myself choosing purples and greens again!  They had 2 boxes full of mini-skeins, sparkly, and normal, and you could mix and match from the 2 boxes.

Snuggly Stars

We'd done a full circuit of the show, and stopped for lunch, showed off our acquisitions, and got the knitting out, but I kept thinking about this pin badge that I'd seen upstairs.  So once I'd rested a bit, I popped back up to get it, and while I was there, I saw these beautiful mini's, and sweet little button badge.

Sable Yarns

I'd decided that I was done for the day, so I was sat downstairs knitting and chatting, then Nicole came back from her final browse and gave me these!  I require no thanks for giving my friends a lift to a yarn festival I'm already going to, especially when those friends are then willing to stand in queues for me, because I'm feeling ill and need to eat something, but I'm not able to stand and wait for a baked potato myself!  So I was genuinely surprised, and touched when Nicole gave me these to thank me for giving her a lift to and from Nottingham.

Rachel

I don't get to see Rachel very often since she moved to Nottingham, we even missed each other at Knit Nottingham's birthday party this year, so it's really lovely when we can meet up.  She told me that's she's been carrying these penguin buttons around for months!  Aren't they awesome though!?!  

It also turns out that Rachel can't tolerate camelid fibres, which she discovered after trying to knit with this yarn.  I already had a few balls of the same colourway that are earmarked to become a Lucy Hague cardigan, and although they're a different dye-lot, I thought it couldn't hurt to have some spare, just in case I've under-estimated how much I need, so I very gratefully took these off Rachel's hands.

Here's everything, all in one photo, including tea!  Bird and Blend seem to have learned just how important a good cuppa is to knitters, so they had their own stall.  They brought their new seasonal teas with them, and had a couple of them made up to try.  I've fallen in love with Fairytale of NY!

Regulars

FO's

Surely you've seen enough pairs of yellow socks by now?  This is the 3rd pair I've made, folded and tagged, ready to be properly labelled once I've finished as many as I can before the end of November.

These are, of course, for the Marie Curie Xmas Sock Quest, they're a women's size 7, and the pattern is a mix of my own sock pattern, and the Marie Curie Quest Socks, by Sherlock Knits.  The yarns are both West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, in the colourways Marie Curie, and Turmeric.

I can't get a photo that shows how lovely this pattern is!  It's so simple, but so effective, and it's just made for tweedy yarns.  I made this version of the hat for my godson Finn.  I wasn't sure if the boys would want me to make them hats this year, as they're getting to the age when they're more likely to want whatever is most popular with their friends, but apparently they still love to have new winter hats made by Auntie Kate!

The pattern for this is Declan's Hat, by Samantha Kirby, and the yarn is Debbie Bliss Luxury Tweed Aran, in the colourway "360015".

WIPs

This is where I'm putting pressure on myself, and very disappointed that I've failed to meet my deadlines, and that I'm very likely to fail to meet my goals for the month.

I had hoped to make at least 5 pairs of Marie Curie Socks, but I've not even cast on the 4th pair, with only 1 week left to go.  I wanted both of Gemma's sons to have their winter hats yesterday.  I want to have all of these projects finished before December 1st so that I can spend all of December relaxing, enjoying my Advent Indulgence tradition, and knitting only what I want to knit.

I'm upset about it, because all of these goals should have been very achievable, had my body not betrayed me over the last 2 months.

*sigh*

Still working on the Mitred Squares cushion cover.  I've done all the short-row triangles for the border at the top and bottom, so now I just need to do the sides.

I'm sure that you all know by now that the pattern is Mitred Squares Blanket Tutorial, by LuAnn Krug, and the yarns are a wide variety of Indie dyed 4-ply, plus West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply, in the colourway "Liquorice" for the border.

It's not yellow!

My eldest niece asked if I could make her some blue socks.  I let her choose the colour from my stash.  Unfortunately there isn't enough of the blue that she chose to make a childs size 13 socks, but there is if I add this matching variegated, and make these slightly unusually patterned socks instead.

The pattern is my own sock pattern, adjusted for childrens socks.  The yarn is Regia My First Regia, in the colourways "01888", and "01819".

I had really wanted to get this finished before yesterday, because yesterday I saw Finn and Olly.  I'm disappointed that I didn't manage it.  

This is the same pattern and yarn as I used for Finn's hat, but in size small, instead of medium.

Stash Acquisition

Only one of these really counts as stash, and that's the one on the left.  The one on the right has been bought specifically to weave a wrap for a friend.  I had really hoped to get that done before now too, but I've had neither the time nor the energy to warp up.  The one on the left accidentally fell into my basket when I went to order the yarn for the wrap.

Obviously, both are Yorkshire Dales yarn, bought from Homespun Wonders.

The yarn on the left is also for Martin's wrap, and just as when I bought the same yarn for my own wrap, it was bought at my local yarn store, Haberdashery in Dinnington.  

Having begun to despair of the amount of time we're spending washing mud off Finn after he's been out for a walk, I've decided to knit him a sweater.  It needs to be easily washable, and isn't really needed for keeping him warm, as he's got a lovely fluffy, furry coat of his own for that, so acrylic will do just fine.  His harness is green, so I decided to find some green yarn to make the sweater from.

When I took these yarns to the counter, I spotted the little penguin patch, so snuck that in too.  

Souvenir yarn, and also a conscious choice to support a bricks and mortar shop.  

The Met Office app assured me that if we went to Bridlington on this day, it was unlikely to rain, and it wouldn't be freezing cold.  Since Roche Abbey has closed for the winter, we haven't had the opportunity to take Finn anywhere interesting for his walks, especially during the floods!  So we thought we'd seize the moment, and go to the seaside for the day.  While there, we were looking for a cash machine, and happened to find it just down the street from In Stitches!  So we popped in, I picked up some sock yarn to make Stephen some socks, and another colour to make Finn a sweater, so that he has one to wear when the other is in the wash, and Finn made friends with the Shop Dog, so a win all around!

My November Knitcrate Sock crate.  I'm still subscribed to the "Energise Me!" theme, which is why this is such outlandishly bright yarn! I can't decide if I should stick with this for the December crate, or change to "Chill Out".

My Winter Knitcrate Malabrigo crate.  I had really meant to cancel my subscription to the quarterly Malabrigo crate, as it's more expensive than than sock crate, but I'm actually really glad that I forgot, because this colourway is stunning!

Finn

Finn loved his day out in Bridlington, although the sea was a bit too cold and rough even for him!  He had a very brief, very shallow paddle, then decided that he'd rather run about on the sand and play with his ball.  

We're on holiday on the Yorkshire coast for a few days next week to celebrate Stephen's birthday, so Finn is going to have the time of his life!

Soggy doggy, having had a bath to remove the filth acquired by running about in a flooded field!  He's not keen on being bathed, but he loves being dried off afterwards!

Mummy!  Why would you want to sew in the ends on your Mitred Squares cushion cover, when you could be rubbing my belly?

Penguin slipper sock?  What penguin slipper sock?  I haven't stolen your penguin slipper sock!

Penguins!

T'is the season for Penguins everywhere!

While my sister and I were up in Newcastle to do a bit more work on sorting through dad's house, we popped to the supermarket to buy lunch, and I came out with this new blanket, and these fluffy, warm, slipper socks.  Finn is a big fan of the slippers, and frequently steals them.  Sometimes, he tries to steal them when they're still on my feet!

Motorway Services snacks to keep us awake!  For shame, we both forgot our re-useable mugs on this journey, but at least Costa has facilities to recycle their paper cups.  However, snacks that are guaranteed free-from allergens (Gluten in my case, dairy for my sister) still have to be wrapped in plastic in order to keep them free of contamination.  I couldn't eat the penguin biscuit, that had wheat in it, but at least it was dairy free, and I can't complain, because the mince tarts are gluten free.

More motorway services tat.  I'm really not sure what's going on with this penguin's hat!

I'm really not convinced by the practise of putting antlers on penguins, but it is a penguin, and I do find myself in a position where an oil burner/device for using wax melts would be useful to me.

I get through so much hand cream.  If you have to have a thing, why not have a version with penguins on it?

This year, we are going to have a Christmas tree.  There are a number of reasons for deciding to do this, some of which will be explained in detail during December.  However, having a Christmas tree means that I have an excuse to buy penguin tree decorations!

Slightly concerned portly penguin is cute.

Seasonal tradition says I must have a new penguin mug.  Penguin mug is full of hot chocolate.

I like to keep my laptop, and my phone, nice and clean.  I could use a boring old cloth, or I could use a penguin with a chamois on his belly.

No, I'm not sneaking in a finished object.  This is an early Christmas present, knitted for me by a friend of Stephen's mum, at her request, on Shetland, using Shetland wool.  I feel very blessed!

I do very few Christmas cards.  Partly because not all of my friends celebrate Christmas, many of them follow other systems of belief, or none at all.  Personally, I'm not a Christian, although I was raised as such, and therefore for the most part I take part in Christian holidays, as they are the traditions I remember from my childhood, and they are the holidays my family celebrate.

Mostly thought I do very few Christmas cards because they're a waste of precious rain forest, and I don't like giving money to big businesses if it encourages them to further destroy our environment.

These however are a different matter, because buying these supports a small independent business, run by an ecologically conscious, and caring person.  I thoroughly recommend taking a look at the art work of Sam Draws Things!   Even so, I've only bought a very small number of them, so if you receive one, know that you're very special to me!

I don't know what I'm going to do with this yet, but I love it!

Last, but not least, Haberdashery in Dinnington runs workshops now and then, and at the moment they're doing needle-felting on Thursday afternoons, from 1pm until 3pm, for just £10.  All of the materials, and cups of tea, are included in the price.  

In just 1 hour on Thursday I learned how to make this little creature on the right, who I'm told is a Tompte, or Swedish Gnome, associated with the Winter Solstice.  Stephen find this amusing, as one of the few Swedish phrases that he knows translates as "You have gnomes in your attic", and means that you're crazy.

In the second hour I showed a couple of the other people there how I made the penguin on the left, although I could have done a much better job of it if I'd taken more time to do it.

That is all for now my dears.  I shall be back in a week to introduce you to my advent plans for this year!