Naturally Warm and Cozy Gift Set

I have spent this past week behind my sewing machine, Cricut, and knitting looms making gifts and helping my daughter on a school project!  Today, I wanted to share a Christmas gift project: a set that includes a scarf, a hat, a knitted jar lid with tag, and a card!

My new loom knitting obsession has had me trying to learn some new stitches, including my new favorite, the bobble stitch.  The pattern for the hat and scarf here is one I created so that I could practice the new stitches I have learned.  I created the scarf on the red Knifty Knitter loom using 1-1/2 skeins of a #5 yarn that I have had in my craft/sewing room for a while called Red Heart Chunky.  I casted on 16 pegs using an e-wrap cast on method after placing markers (little rings) on pegs 4, 7, 10, and 13.  I learned that I knit like I read, from left to right so I consider peg one to be the one to the right of the side peg, with peg #2 to the right of that, and so on.  Because I am left-handed, this direction comes naturally, but I have found that many of the books I now have go in the other direction.

I knitted rows one through three.  To see a video of a knit stitch, click here.

I e-wrapped row four.  To see a video of an e-wrap stitch (also called a 'single stitch'), click here.

On row five, I used a knit stitch for all the pegs without a maker.  For the ones with a marker, I did a bobble stitch wrapping 5 times.  To see a video of a bobble stitch, click here.

Row 6:  Knit stitch.

Row 7:  Purl stitch.  To see a video of a purl stitch, click here.

Row 8: Knit stitch.

Row 9:  Purl stitch.

Row 10: e-wrap

I loom knitted the above ten rows 26 times, creating a scarf that is 48" before the fringe was added.  I used a flat panel bind off.  For the fringe, I cut 5 pieces of yarn 11" for each fringe tassel, folding the bundle in half and completing a lanyard loop with the aid of a crochet hook.  (There are five of these "fringe tassels" on each end.)

At this point, I wanted to quickly mention a couple of useful things that I figured out...
I take my knitting everywhere with me and find that I can often "lose my place" so I have notes in my notebook that remind me which direction I am going, for example "k ->, k <-, k ->, e <-".  I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but some stitches are hard for me to just look at to know what they are, and if I had a little guide that reminds me which direction a particular row is going, it gives me just the clue I need to backtrack to figure out where I am.  Of course, this only works on flat panel loom knitting!

I also have started using a tool to e-wrap and loop around the pegs, which you can see on the photo above (the blue straw).  I mentioned this on my last post, but wanted to share it again because it makes a HUGE time difference when e-wrapping and doing the stockinette stitches!  To see a video on how to make what I call a stylus (and what the guy on the video calls a 'styler'), click here.  (You will want to fast forward 1 minute 14 seconds to get to the part on how he makes his styler).  I have used a cheap Bic pen casing, straws, and the outer plastic from a Crayola Twistable crayon as different looms have different amounts of space between the pegs.  (When I do a knit, purl, bobble, etc., I just scoot the stylus down out of the way and use my hands to work with the yarn; so far, I only use the tool for e-wrap and double knit stockinette stitches.)  I use a pipe cleaner just as in the video to thread the yarn through the straw. 

OK, back to the projects!  I wanted to make a hat to match the scarf. 

To do the hat, I used round green Knifty Knitter loom (36 pegs) - even number of pegs required for this pattern with my directions.  I did an e-wrap cast on going counter clockwise. 

For the first row, I did a knit stitch, then a purl, repeating this combo to the end of the row and continuing on the following rows until I had 1-1/2" of rows completed on my loom.  This creates the band around the head and doesn't roll.

Next, I did three rows of e-wraps.

Next, I used the 10-row combination listed above (from my scarf directions).  I did this three times.  For the bobble, I bobbled every 4th peg for the first bobble row.  On the next repeat, when it was time to bobble, I bobbled every 2nd peg.  Then back to the 4th peg on the third series.  This created an alternating pattern of bobbles for the hat, unlike the scarf.

Last, I did four rows of e-wraps.  My hat was 10" on the loom.  I did a gathered bind off.

I thought it would be fun to play off the idea of  knitting and do a knitted jar lid for a layered cookie mix that was part of this gift set.  For tons of recipes for layered "in a jar" types of mixes, click here.

For this, I used the Knifty Knitter Flower Loom.  I e-wrapped 2" then pulled the bottom loops up to make a hem (just like for hats-- in fact, this is a little hat).  I continued e-wrapping for a total of 2".  I did a gathered bind-off to close up the top.  I used a crochet hook to help feed a piece of yarn around and tied it into a bow.  The e-wrap stretches and is very forgiving so it worked well for this!

I created a tag for the jar using the Paper Trimmings cartridge (page 62).  On my cartridge, for some reason the 'snowflke' and 'snwflk-s' are reversed.  I am not sure if that is the case for all the Paper Trimmings cartridges, but I just wanted to mention it just in case!  (I kept thinking I had done something wrong until I realized it must be a error that they were reversed in the book).  I cut the image and shadow at 3" on the Expression.  I ran the snowflake through the Xyron and used chunky glitter on it.

I created a card using the same Paper Trimmings snowflake (without shadow this time) at 1-3/4".   The papers were embossed on the Cuttlebug.  For the embossed kraft paper, I rubbed a white Studio G ink pad over it to emphasize the shapes.  I embellished the card with tiny stars that I punched, ribbon, and twine.

Thank you for using your time to check out this post-- I know this is a super busy time of year and I appreciate your visit!  This week, I am finishing up a costume for my daughter's school event that I have made with my sewing machine and my Cricut-- hope to share that soon.  I am also sewing doll clothes like a mad elf and loom knitting wherever I have to wait.  I hope your seasonal crafting is keeping you happy as you complete gifts, cards, and decor to make the holidays special at your house!