Join Me at the Holiday Crafts Summit

Are you ready for holiday crafting? I’ve been doing a lot for Halloween lately so I haven’t given much thought to the winter holidays, but they will be here quicker than we imagine.

If you’re ready to get started on your holiday crafting list, whether you’re looking for decor for your home or easy gifts to make and give, you’ll want to check out the Rebecca Page holiday crafts summit.

This free summit takes place Oct. 16-20 and offers 44 classes in knitting, crochet, paper crafts, embroidery and sewing. I’m teaching two classes, one of which is for knitters.

My class is about knit headbands and earwarmers. In this class you’ll learn how to make custom headbands and ear warmers using any weight of yarn you like, any stitch pattern you want and whatever size you need.

I demonstrate working projects flat and in the round, sewing them flat or with a twist, or using a cable to make the twist. The hope is that this will give you ideas to make the perfect headband/ear warmer for yourself or to give as a gift.

There’s another knitting class that I’m not teaching, for a knit Santa gift bag that is just so cute!

My other class is a sewing class, which shows you how to make a couple of simple and useful gifts for the reader in your life: a pillow case with a pocket to hold your book (or notebook, pens, highlighters, reading glasses, etc.) and a book weight to help hold the book open so you don’t have to. Because I love to read and knit at the same time, which I can’t do if I’m holding the book open!

Each day through the summit a number of classes are released and available for viewing each day. You can also sign up for a VIP pass to get lifetime access to all courses, plus three classes that are only available through the VIP ticket. I hope you’ll join me to learn all about these quick, easy and fun to make gift ideas!

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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