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Cute Ways to Wrap and Decorate for the Holidays from Our Readers

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Chirstmas ornaments and wrappings using yarn.I love getting user submissions because there’s no way I can keep up with all the yarny goodness happening out there in the world without a few spies. If you ever have anything to share, whether it’s a pattern on your blog or something you see somewhere else that you just love, you can click on that link at the top of the page that says “suggest a DIY” and give me all the details.

That said, here are a few great posts my readers have shared recently that revolve around the theme of getting ready for Christmas and wrapping presents. A couple use knitting and a couple just use yarn, but they’re all cute.

On the knitting front, there’s this super cute Santa Knit Gift Card Holder from Kara at Petals to Picots. Inspired by Santa’s suit, this is a fun way to give a gift card, use up little bit of yarn and make a present that doubles as a decoration.

And Dee Hardwicke has a really cute “pot stand” with a reindeer worked in stranded knitting back and forth in rows. It’s really pretty and would be great to use as a hot pad or an extra large coaster for your hot chocolate.

In the yarn but not knit category we have purl3agony’s cute yarn-wrapped Christmas ornaments (I love the one with the buttons!) and the super-cute ice cream cone themed wrapping decoration from Let’s Wrap Stuff.

Do you add yarny embellishments to your packages, or your tree? I’d love to hear about it!

Looking for more Christmas themed Knitting patterns? Check out some of our favorite Knitting patterns on Etsy and

These Christmas Knitting Pattern Books on Amazon

 

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Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!