A St. Nicholas Day Treasure

Today I'm joining Nicole at Frontier Dreams for her Keep Calm Craft On series.

 

It's been such a lovely couple of days of getting things ready! The beginning of Advent, preparing for a month's worth of celebrating.  It's been a bit of a struggle to find the quiet, alone time to work on little treats for St. Nicholas to leave in my kiddos shoes but I was able to carve out a bit of time last night when I returned home from school. It was a bit late, and there was still come tidying up that needed to happen before I would allow myself to relax. Once that moment was realized, there was no stopping me!

 

Just a few weeks ago I finally found the courage to teach myself how to knit. It was something I had wanted for a very, very long time. As a child I had requested to learn, but, the timing was never right. As I got older, I was taught to crochet, so I built on those skills, sort of! Anyway, I saw this beautiful knitted story blanket and was so inspired by it that I went out and got a pair of needles and sat up late one night and watched about a dozen Youtube videos until I had it down! It was much easier than I had expected but I believe it came to me easily because I wished it so :) I've been so inspired by following along with various Yarn Alongs but don't quite have the skills to knit a sweater or something bigger or more complicated than a scarf! I've been finding that the back and forth knitting is getting a bit boring, I needed to spice things up a bit. I knew that I had wanted to put together some lovely peg dolls for the littles for St. Nicholas day so I thought (mind you, I truly was just imagining never did it dawn on me that I could make it happen) a knitted, little gnome hat would be a perfect finishing touch.

 

 

I found a very simple pattern, gathered all of my materials, and began! This little gnome came to life very quickly. He told me what colors to chose for his underclothes and coat. Even the blanket stitch. I didn't have to think of anything. Then came the little hat. I closed my eyes and put my hand into my yarn basket, pulled out a ball of yarn and proceeded to cast on.

 

 

This picture is several rows into my little hat; I had begun to decrease my stitches at this point. All of this is so new to me so when I saw that it was actually coming together, (read:: it was actually working) I could hardly contain my joy! And it was too late so no one was awake to share it with!

 

 

Here he is, in all of his splendid glory! I love him, dearly, and I love that when I was helping bring him to form that I immediately knew which little he would belong to. All of that love and energy is encapsulated within him. I just know that he will be deeply loved, a treasure to live among us, through our children's play-filled days. I can't wait to get started on the other little friend who will be joining him!

 

What are you working on?