Working on Craftvent 2020

 Hi all -

Christmas is fast approaching and it's starting to feel like winter here. I usually spend this time of year scrambling to finish making Christmas presents before my trip home. But our strange COVID year continues and, since I can't travel home, I'm skipping Christmas this year. That seemed a lot better than trying to mail packages back and forth at a time when the post office is completely slammed. I'll really miss my family, but it's a bit of a relief to not have to worry about all of those Christmas projects. I assume we'll have a family zoom meeting sometime over the holiday, like we did the Sunday after Thanksgiving. My sister (who took over the "matriarch" role after our mom passed away) is responsible for the scheduling of all of that stuff. We have a nurse and a respiratory therapist in our family who generally work holidays and odd hours, so the scheduling can be a bit difficult. It's so nice that my sister is willing to do all of the organizing! My sisters are the best!!

So this year I'm getting to work on whatever projects strike my fancy. The main project I've been working on is my Craftvent project from Jimmy Beans Wool. Every year, JBW has a special project that is packaged as an advent calendar. They always have a couple of color options and have a knitting version and a crochet version. This is my third year of doing the knitting version. The calendar is a lot of fun. It's set up so that you have a little package to open every morning until Christmas. The package will either have a little ball of yarn that is used in the next section of the pattern or a little surprise. Last year, the packages were these cool little tins with magnets on the bottom with a metal board so they can hang on the wall:

The daily labels were little slips of paper that cover up the window in the tin. Now I can use these tins to store little sewing and knitting notions on the wall:

This year the packages are little draw-string bags. For example, here's the first day's package which held the knitting needles for this project:

Now, each day we either get a little ball of yarn to add to the project:

Or a fun little surprise:

This year's project is the Tidings to Yew shawl designed by Amy Gunderson. Here is my version so far:

This has been a really fun project to work on and, although it is designed as a shawl, I think I'll use it more as a scarf. I might even use the left-over yarn to make fringe on the ends.

I've also done a little work on my latest sweater, I See Spring designed by Joji Locatelli:

Last time I had the upper back part done. This time I picked up the stitches on the left shoulder and knit the right upper front down to the point where it will connect to the upper left front once I get that added. For the other knitters out there, this is the first sweater I've made that uses short row shaping. My wrap-and-turns are a bit visible so I might not be picking up the wraps correctly. It doesn't look too bad so I'm going to leave it and continue to do things the same way for this sweater, but I'll have to do some practicing after I'm finished with this to see if I can figure out the right way to do this. I'll also try some other methods of short rows to compare with this one to figure out what method works best for me.

For a change of pace, I've also been working on my current cross stitch project:

Cross stitch is a pretty slow craft so it's hard to see the progress without comparing it with previous pictures, but I've mainly been concentrating on the areas around the outside of the arch.

That's about it. I hope that everyone is staying safe and healthy! It's a difficult time, but the more carefully we follow the restrictions, the quicker we can get back to normal. 

Happy Holidays, everyone!!

Nancy