Here’s the last Christmas gift I made that I promised to show you.

My mother requested a “scarf” that was a loop, but she didn’t want it to hang down very far and she didn’t want to have to double it up. That basically equated to looking for cowl patterns that were longer or could easily be made longer. I ended up using the Botanical Cowl pattern, which I found free on Ravelry.

This was a great little pattern. It came in a cowl length and a really long scarf length. I used the cowl version, but ended up lengthening it a bit to fit my mother’s specifications.

She also requested that it be fairly lightweight, but not too light. Not as light as the mohair scarf that I made her for her birthday, but not chunky like the alpaca scarf I gave her for Christmas last year.

That led me to the awesome selection of hand-dyed fingering weight yarns we have at the shop, and since she also requested browns and tans, I had the perfect excuse to buy Arroyo, one of the latest colorways of Hazel Knits Artisan Sock yarn. If you have not used this yarn, it is really great to work with. And as a bonus, there was enough left after the cowl (which used less than 200 yards) for me to make something for myself. (Photos of that project coming up soon as well, I promise!)

Anyhow, I hope she likes the cowl/scarf. If she doesn’t, I’d be happy to take it back!!

It’s been fabulous to have all my holiday gift making done so early this year. In fact, all the shopping is done as well, and all of our gifts were shipped on Nov. 28 to their respective giftees. The only thing left on my list to do since then has been to bake cookies as a host gift to take to a Yule party on Dec. 11. Other than that, I have basically sworn off all shopping other than food shopping until after the beginning of the year. You haven’t seen madness until you’ve seen an SF Bay Area mall between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Instead, I’ll be at my favorite coffee shop with tea and a scone knitting (I have tons of projects I would like to start!), reading, or doing a crossword puzzle. Hope to see you there!