Christmas completions...

I knitted the sample ages ago, but today I finally got round to photographing and uploading another pattern inspired by the Galapagos Islands, the Santiago Cowl.

 

I was hoping to get a lovely sunny day to do the photos... but gave up on this.

It's got a similar construction to the Bartolome cowl (appropriately, as Bartolome is just off the coast of the much larger Santiago island), so anyone who buys the Santiago pattern will also get sent Bartolome free. It's £2 of which 50p goes to the Galapagos Conservation Trust.

I also knitted myself a Christmas present from Natural Dye Studio Schehezerade which is a spectacularly soft baby camel and silk blend - Ashley Knowlton's lovely Butterfly Forest Shawl pattern.

Isn't it nice when your patterns work?

My sister-in-law wants some fingerless gloves for driving for Christmas, so I knit her a pair of my Beaujolais fingerless mitts in Artesano Alpaca DK. It was a while since I wrote the pattern so I was delighted to discover it made sense and didn't seem to have any mistakes...

They're quite cute - I sort of want to keep them, which is always the problem I have with knitting presents!

Just been sent the PDF of my wrap pattern that is going in February's Knit Now magazine, which is all very exciting, and have finished a sample for the March issue, which is just waiting for me to get round to writing up the pattern, and doing all the tedious measuring bits.

On the subject of patterns working, so pleased to see the lovely version someone had made on Ravelry of my Black Beacon Scarf. It looks neater than my sample! The knitter in question is in Malaga - it feels sort of miraculous that someone in Spain is knitting a scarf pattern inspired by  my trips to East Anglia.

Went to my friend Andrew's wedding at the weekend (he's a very funny stand up comedian - you can follow him on Twitter at @theAndrewWatts). It involved a rather curious ceremony, being essentially a double-handed Christian/Jewish affair, with the priest and the rabbi acting in tandem. One minute Hebrew chanting - next minute "Bread of Heaven".

Being me, rather than taking photos of the happy couple, I took lots of the priest's rather magnificent vestments:

Wouldn't it make the most gorgeous colourwork sweater? Maybe by someone like Alice Starmore. Not quite sure my colourwork design skills are quite up there yet.

If this all sounds a bit too serious, I can assure you the grapey theme seen on the vestments was more than supported by the generous wine supply thereafter...

Added some weeks later: this very wedding was the subject of an article in the Sunday Times colour supplement on Jan 30th.