O Christmas Tree

Christmas is drawing nearer and nearer. Unfortunately, this year it's quite difficult for me to get into a christmas mood. That's why I tried to create my own knitted decorations christmas decorations.

Here's the result: a small and fun pattern for a little christmas tree in two sizes. One tree only takes up about 10 to 15 grams of yarn, so it's great for using up some leftover green yarn. 

This work by Knitting and so on is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Materials

• per tree I used about 10 to 14 grams of very (!) old green yarn in my stash; I guess it was DK or sports weight yarn
• knitting needle that's a bit smaller than the size the yarn calls for; I used 2.5mm needles
• a third needle for a three-needle bind off
• scrap yarn for the provisional cast on
• a crochet hook for provisional cast on

Techniques and Special Abbreviations

• Provisional CO: My favorite method for a provision CO is the crochet provisional CO - it is shown in this Youtube video by New Stitch a Day.
• Short rows with wrap and turn ("w+t"): https://youtu.be/G4GxFvi4KD0
• Three Needle Bind Off: https://youtu.be/Ph93jWSzTa0
• Small "Bobble": I used the following method to knit a small bobble: right in the middle of the row (where the pattern asks you to knit a bobble) CO4 with knitted CO (or cable CO), then directly bind off 4 stitches and go on knitting the row. In the instructions the word "bobble" will be used (here's how to do a knitted CO: https://youtu.be/bTgT7kE1c_k)

Instructions

Bigger Tree

Provisionally CO 30 sts and knit the first row with your working yarn
Ridge 1: sl1, k10, w+t, k to end
Ridge 2: sl1, k4, bobble, k10, bobble, k3, w+t, k to end
Ridge 3: sl1, k16, w+t, k to end
Ridge 4: sl1, k8, bobble, k4, w+t, k to end
Ridge 5: sl1, k13, w+t, k to end
Ridge 6: sl1, k3, bobble, k7, bobble, k15, w+t, k to end
Ridge 7: sl1, k10, w+t, k to end
Ridge 8: sl1, k4, w+t, k to end
Ridge 9: sl1, k7, bobble, k6, w+t, k to end
Ridge 10: sl1, k6, w+t, k to end
Ridge 11: sl1, k22, w+t, k to end
Ridge 12: sl1, k5, bobble, k2, w+t, k to end
Ridge 13: sl1, k17, bobble, k to end; turn; sl1, k to end
Repeat rows 1 to 13 twice more.

Now your piece should look similar to the one in the picture on the right.

Finishing
Put the stitches from the provisional CO on a knitting needle. Hold the piece rights sides together and do a three needle bind off.
Afterwards, turn the piece right sides out. Use a pen or something similar to get into the top.
If the yarn you used was really soft, you might want to stabilize the tree. You can do this by cutting out a piece of paper or soft cardboard in the shape of a 90° pizza slice (similar to the tree before the three needle BO) and insert it into the tree.
The yarn I used was stiff enough that there wasn't any need for stabilization.

Smaller Tree

Provisionally CO 24 sts and knit the first row with your working yarn
Ridge 1: sl1, k20, w+t, k to end
Ridge 2: sl1, k3, bobble, k8, w+t, k to end
Ridge 3: sl1, k16, w+t, k to end
Ridge 4: sl1, k5, bobble, k4, bobble, k3, w+t, k to end
Ridge 5: sl1, k4, w+t, k to end
Ridge 6: sl1, k11, bobble, k2, w+t, k to end
Ridge 7: sl1, k10, w+t, k to end
Ridge 8: sl1, k4, bobble, k12, bobble, k to end; turn; sl1, k to end
Ridge 9, sl1, k8, w+t, k to end
Ridge 10: sl1, k6, bobble, k5, bobble, k5, w+t, k to end
Ridge 11: sl1, k6, w+t, k to end
Ridge 12: sl1 k to end; turn, s1, k to end
Repeat rows 1 to 13 twice more.

Finishing
Put the stitches from the provisional CO on a knitting needle. Hold the piece rights sides together and do a three needle bind off.
Afterwards, turn the piece right sides out. Use a pen or something similar to get into the top.
If the yarn you used was really soft, you might want to stabilize the tree. You can do this by cutting out a piece of paper or soft cardboard in the shape of a 90° pizza slice (similar to the tree before the three needle BO) and insert it into the tree.

This blogpost was featured at the Handmade Monday Link Party No. 5. Thank you!

Sparkler Mitts auf Deutsch

Heike von Heikeshaekellust (eifelgirl1 auf Ravelry) hat sich die Mühe gemacht, die Häkel-Anleitung für die Sparkler Mitts ins Deutsche zu übersetzen. Vielen lieben Dank dafür!
(Edit 03.10.2021: Update des Links auf die PDF-Datei, da sich offenbar die Links auf GoogleDrive geändert hatten.)

Die Anleitung findet sich hier als PDF-Datei.

The original english version of this free crochet pattern is available in this blogpost.

Attempt at Intarsia

Usually I'm not very good at knitting intarsia. I have two patterns on my blog that use this technique (Xmas Star Mitts and Cordillera Scarf), but it's not exactly my speciality.

That's why I was really surprised, when a photo of this attempt of an intarsia cowl got a huge amounts of likes on my Instagram account. To be honest, before it got this attention, I wasn't even sure whether I would go on knitting it or whether I would frog it ... But now, I guess I will finish it (and later publish the pattern). At least it's good practice for colorwork knitting and it's fun to knit :)