WIP Wednesday: Crafting Christmas

Sorry for the radio silence this past week, folks. I've had all kinds of things going on in "the real world", so I haven't had much time for blogging. I have certainly been making things though! My Christmas Crafting is coming right along :) I suppose first I'll report on my non-Christmas item:

My Emelie cardigan - poor neglected thing that it is, lol. I have had a few chances to work on it when I was with the recipient of other item I'm making, so the back piece is ever growing, even if it is pretty slowly.

Since I'm confident that neither my husband nor brother in law read my blog, I am really excited to show you their gifts :) I'm making them matching Shibe Doge beanies, lol. They both love the Shibe Doge (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should google it - so funny), so I thought it would be fun to make them matching hats. Then they can be buddies even across the ocean (my brother in law is in Japan). I've finished both hats, but I still have to do the words.

This is my first experience with duplicate stitch. It's not difficult, but it certainly does take some time! I've managed to do two of my phrases on one hat (So Chill, Much Brr!), and I still have two more to do on the other side and then the whole other hat. I went with black and dark gray because my husband basically wants everything in black all the time, plus this way it will match everything they may wear it with :) I can't wait to give it to them!

This is a project that has worked up surprisingly fast. I'm always at a loss with what to give my husband's grandma. She lives in an assisted living facility so she can't have too many knick nacky items around (she shares a room), plus due to her health issues she can't get any foods or desserts, and she doesn't really have any crafty hobbies ... you can see why I have a hard time figuring out what to give her! Since I'm trying to make as many of my gifts as I can this year, my husband said she might like a shawl. That I can do, lol. I asked him what her favorite colors were and he said pink or teal. Immediately I was struck with genius - I've had this partial skein of variegated acrylic yarn in my stash since high school! I made a Swedish weave project as a gift for my grandmother with it, but that only used maybe 10% of the skein. Never being a big variegated fan, I had no idea what to do with the rest. Can we say fate? I mean seriously, I've had this yarn at least 14 years and it has gone to two different grandmas, lol. Once I picked the yarn, I searched my pattern stash and decided on the Garden View Shawlette, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. It's a smaller shawl, so I knew I'd have enough yarn and it wouldn't take weeks to make.

I know it doesn't look like much in the full on photo, but once it's blocked you'll be able to see the design nicely. It has large garter stitch leaves around the bottom edge with a stockinette body and eyelet rows at the bottom and top. I actually really like how it's turned out and I know his grandma will enjoy having it :) Gotta love something that will keep her warm in the air conditioned buildings but that it also easy to wash, right?

So that's what I've had going this week :) Any Christmas gift projects in the works for you?