Much as it pains me to write this, I am starting to think about Christmas knitting.

Every year I end up knitting gifts even though I swear that I won’t do it, and this year is no different. Either I’m too “nice”, or just a glutton for punishment. From a practical point of view, it saves money. I have so much gorgeous yarn in my stash (and my entire stash is on Ravelry now, if anyone wants to see the extent of my collection!) that I won’t need to buy any to make the presents. It’s always a matter of debate whether it’s better to give someone the thing they want (no surprise because they know what they’re getting, but at least you know they want it) or just ignoring the list of pre-approved gifts and giving something personal and handcrafted, and risking the looks of bemusement and the gift being shoved in a drawer and never seeing the light of day.

For now I’m going with the belief that these gifts are personal and handmade and therefore better than a £2 bottle of bubble bath. So the first couple of patterns I have chosen for presents are Golden Bracelets from Knitting New Mittens and Gloves and Forbes Forest from Scarf Style. The glove book was my birthday present from Cairi, and I’ve been looking forward to knitting something from it. I’ve never knitted gloves before as the fingers have put me off, but am determined to give them a go and stop being a wimp.

I’ve not decided on a colourway for the gloves yet. I have a selection of Rowan 4ply Botany in my stash which I’m going to use instead of the recommended Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift. It’s far softer and while I think *I’d* be happy with more rustic mittens, I want these to be so soft that they’re never taken off. But first I need to swatch colour combinations to see which go together the best. Colour theory is something I have real problems with, so seeing how different shades go together will be a good exercise for me to do. Especially if I ever want to knit Autumn Rose in a purple colourway. *laughs hysterically*

Forbes Forest is far easier. I have 300g of Stylecraft Pure Wool DK in Thyme which is machine washable (just in case!) and a very similar colour to the scarf in the book. I’m interested to see how this yarn knits up and blocks, because it was actually very reasonably priced for pure wool yarn, so would make for bargainous sweater knitting. The other colours aren’t that inspiring (i.e. there’s no dark purple) but it would be great for small people’s clothes.