DIY Life

Popular yarn manufacturer Berroco frequently releases new free patterns, so it's not surprising that they started with Christmas patterns back when we were still posting about Halloween stuff.

Their latest free holiday pattern is Minutia: a collection of twelve tiny, detailed sweaters knit from a sport-weight yarn. They're cute, and they only take a few hours each to knit. When you're finished, twist a hanger out of craft wire, hang the sweater on it (the only time it's acceptable to put knitwear on a hanger, as far as I'm concerned), and put it on a tree or a package.

These might be a better way to use up yarn scraps than a project to invest in, unless you're going to make a lot of them. Many of the designs are multi-colored, and it seems wasteful to me to buy a whole extra hank of yarn just so that one of these miniature sweaters can have a contrast stripe at the collars and cuffs.

Among Berroco's other holiday offerings, you might like Lattice, a colorful lattice-stitch stocking, the Silent Night cabled tree skirt that can also be made as a capelet (just eliminate one of the wedges), a collection of felted ornaments called Decorate that was released around this time last year, and John, a Fair Isle stocking.

When I was a little girl, my siblings and I never had Christmas stockings. There were plenty of presents under the tree, but not one stocking was ever found. Amazingly, I never felt cheated, probably because of all the presents we received, especially the boxes of chocolate.

This year, my little girl will have a stocking. There is no fire by which to hang her stocking, but she will never know the difference, considering she is only two. You can make your own personalized Christmas stocking too, thanks to the step by step instructions on wikiHow. You probably already have all the materials needed to make the Christmas stockings in your craft basket, so there is no excuse not to make them right away.

If you happen to be short on time, this project is simple and easy enough for the kids to pitch in and help glue the decorations on the stockings, making it truly personalized.

St. Nicholas's Day is supposedly the saint's birthday, but in many parts of Europe, it is also, to some extent or another, a gift-giving holiday for kids. Although the celebration is best-known in its Dutch form, Sinterklaas, the simpler German form is probably more likely to be celebrated in North America.

I celebrated St. Nicholas's Day, December 6th, as a child, and continue to celebrate it as an adult. To me, it was always a wonderful opportunity for a few early stocking-stuffer-like gifts, which can be really helpful in assuaging a kid's Christmas-related impatience (or, you know, that of a blogger).

How did we celebrate? I would leave out a pair of shoes, and in the morning, St. Nicholas would have left me a small present or two -- an ornament, a pair of socks, some candy, a tiny stuffed animal.

Tonight is St. Nicholas's Eve. Pick up some baking materials and small gifts after work, polish your shoes, and join me after the break for some ideas!

I was inspired by a recent blog post and I followed that lead in the pursuit of thinking up uses for old socks. Every time we use an item for just one idea beyond it's original manufactured intent, we have increased the validity of that manufacturing act. Whether you think so or not, reusing an item just once reaffirms your respect for the entire manufacturing process from raw material to finished goods.

Yeah, it may sound stupid to some people but that just goes to show how little those people really understand their own affect on this world. If you use a Styrofoam egg carton as a paint tray for your child, you have thereby doubled the validity of that egg carton's manufactured existence, strange but true.