To Gift or Not

With all of the holidays fast approaching, I've read a lot about knitters gearing up to knit gifts. And a lot of knitters who are gearing up to not.

The Knitmore Girls are hosting a Grinch-along where they are encouraging knitters to just enjoy the holidays and knit without pressure. If you take a picture of your non-gift knitting fun and post it on their Ravelry group or Instagram, you could win a Grinchy knitting bag sewn by the Knitmore Girls. I will definitely be posting in this thread, because I have a couple of projects that are for personal fun and won't be given as gifts. And I want to win a Grinchy bag because they are so cute AND it will be from the Knitmore Girls.

Yarn Floozies has a really fun Knitting Time Calculator, that will help calculate the cost of a hand knit gift. This is more for people making requests and not really gifts, but I really liked the idea behind it. It might help to give me a reality check should I decide to knit an I Heart Noro blanket because it's obviously full of knitted love and everyone I love should have one.

If I were to decide that I want to plunge headfirst into some serious gift knitting for the challenge and adrenaline rush, Curious Handmade has a really nice free Holiday Gift Knitting Planner. I think this is a cool idea and I think the Yarn Harlot plans out her knitting time similarly on a spreadsheet.

I don't have any plans to bust out a bunch of hand knits for this holiday season, but I always say that. And then I get everything planned out for my family and decide that just maybe I could squeeze a gift or two in. This usually happens the beginning of December. We'll see if it happens this year.

I have been inspired by some of the Advent calendars and Holiday decoration knitting patterns I've seen on the Hot Right Now Ravelry list recently. One of my favorites is this Knitted Gingerbread House from Frankie's Knitted Stuff. I love her patterns and this house has a hinged roof so you can fill the inside with candy. The other pattern she has coming out is an Advent Garland with 24 different decorations on it. It starts December 1st and ends Christmas Eve. I love the idea of knitting one little ornament a day and having a cute handmade garland to hang up on Christmas. I might just have to do this one!