Little Knits

Things have been a little hectic on the home front since the beginning of December so it's been quiet here on the blog. I tend to get a little burnt out over the Christmas period, and unfortunately my crafting (and blogging) can shift from an activity of relaxation and escapism to one of self imposed deadlines and stress. 

But don't worry, I have been knitting. Here are a couple of little knits I made before Christmas...

A gold star decoration for my Christmas tree. I think it turned out well, although I didn't enjoy knitting with the synthetic and stretching metallic yarn at all. I really like the pattern - I'm a sucker for a centered double decrease - but I don't really understand the use of a provisional cast on that then asks you to pick up (a heap) of stitches to knit the back. I hope to make more for the tree before next Christmas but will have to look into a way to work around this issue. 

 A big heart for Nina. I used this pattern but found the original size too small and fiddly, so I fudged a supersized version. I'm not 100% happy with the shape and am not a fan of seaming small things like this (or seaming anything for that matter). If I want to knit a heart again I will try this pattern from Gifted: Lovely Things to Knit and Crochet (which I happened to discover at my local library this week - yay!) which is knit in one piece and uses short row shaping. 

Post-Christmas in the spirit of using up left-overs, I started a bit of stash busting and cast on 3 new projects. I'll keep you posted on the progress...