Never Ending Christmas

Last November, I decided to get myself a Christmas present. I bought an advent calendar from Mystery Mouse Yarns. This advent calendar contained twelve 20g mini skeins of beautiful hand dyed fingering weight yarn in luscious Victorian colors, and would be accompanied by several surprises like stitch markers and candy, as well as a full 100g skein of yarn on the last day. Each skein and surprises was carefully wrapped. Mystery Mouse Yarns loves books, especially mystery books, and this advent calendar would give me twelve clues about a particular Sherlock Holmes mystery, with the big reveal on the last day. I was so excited when the box came!  But I had to wait for December 1.

The plan was to open the skein every other day in December, as there were only 12 mini skeins plus the big one on Christmas. Advent calendars cost a lot: this one cost around $150. Full 25 day advent calendars cost close to or over $300. Since this was the first advent calendar I ever got, I figured I’d go for the smaller one in case I was disappointed. Also, this was the first advent calendar that Holly Armstrong of Mystery Mouse Yarns had ever done, so there was that. Turns out, I was most definitely NOT disappointed and I can’t wait to get the next advent calendar from her in December 2023! She’s mentioned that this one will be based on an Agatha Christie novel, and I am very excited by that. 

The internet is full of great ideas for what to knit with an advent calendar’s yarn, from shawls to scrappy blankets to sweaters. Holly had designed a pattern specifically for her advent calendar, the Victorian Bookshelf Wrap, which is beautiful and is now available to purchase in her Etsy store. I may make it some day.

But I already knew what I wanted to knit before I ever got the yarn: the Festive Wrap by Ambah O’Brien. 

 

I started knitting this four days ago, and I’m loving it. Each color is knit in its own little space, one of three little lace patterns. Here’s what it looks like so far:

It will be even more beautiful when it’s blocked. I’m very happy with it! It keeps on giving me the Christmas spirit as I work on it.

In other news, I finished a few things. My Valenvent project came out beautiful:

My sparkly socks came out very sparkly and I have worn them twice already!

And yes, the brown leggings from hell are finished, but the first time I wore them I realized I would likely never wear them again, because despite the Lycra mixed in with the merino and the fact I knit them in the smallest size, they fell down constantly and I was always pulling them up. They might do okay if I double them and just use them as knee high legwarmers. In the end, if it’s really cold I will put them on. I might wear them to bed. At least I used up the two skeins of yarn. 

Keep on knitting! See you soon.