Yarning Along: Christmas craft excitement

This weekend I took a bit of a break from knitting (I had a sore shoulder and elbow, so decided that knitting might not be the best plan. Turns out it was a trapped nerve, which fixed itself pretty quickly), so got started with a couple of festive activities. You may remember that last year I made my own yarn advent calendar. Well this year I am making a yarn advent calendar, but it's not for me: I am taking part in a yarn advent calendar swap organised by layfamilyyarn on Instagram. So I spent the weekend stamping number stitckers, winding minis and wrapping tiny parcels, which was all a lot of fun. I also took a walk to a local Christmas craft fair, which is always lovely and very festive. I didn't actually buy very much, just a Christmas present for a Secret Santa that I'm involved with this year, but I always enjoy browsing craft fairs.

Another thing I worked on this weekend was the cross stitch wreath I have been sewing. I'm sure that when I bought the kit I thought I could do it in an evening. How wrong I was! Last week I realised I has misaligned one side of the wreath by a couple of stitches, so did a huge amount of unpicking. I was finding the chart that came with the kit too small to follow easily, so I decided to take a photo of the chart and print it out much larger. This was an excellent plan as not only can I now see the stitches to work from, I can also colour them in as I go, which makes the chart much easier to follow! Why didn't I think of that before? I am a little concerned that I have a whole length of thread that is a slightly different shade of green to all the others, but that I have assigned yarn to each of the symbols already, so may have done something wrong. I'm pretty certain it doesn't matter...

Back on knitting, I am making good progress with my Christmas socks, and love how the stripes are developing. Other than those I am currently between projects, which can only mean one thing: tonight I get to cast on the Christmas stocking! I'm quite excited about this project, and finally got round to writing the pattern up this morning, so should be able to publish the pattern in time for next Christmas if not this.

I'm still reading Into the Water and enjoying it, even though I'm not that far in. The story revolves around the drowning pool, which, as the name suggests, is where many people have drowned, and the unexpected death of a local author who was writing about the pool. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character, and the narrative jumps around in time. I'm finding the writing style really engaging.

Stocking yarn and the current read. And fairy lights. I bought them a couple of weeks ago, and now they're out of the box, expect them to appear in far too many of my photos!

What are you crafting on and reading this week?