Knitting Ornaments (Knitted Ornaments?)

I really wanted to blog about this before Christmas, but when one is working on Christmas presents, for people who read the blog regularly or even just sometimes, well, it lets the cat out of the bag, doesn't it? I wanted the surprise more than I wanted to write about it (though not by much). But now that the holiday has rushed past on its merry way, I am free again. So: look what I made!


I started with scarves, ornament-sized, a great way to use up leftover bits of yarn BTW:


As I was working on them:


And some in black for my brother:


I thought, I wonder how hard it would be to make a little sweater? I bet I could fake one without even bothering to search for a pattern.

So I did, and it worked! How neat is that?

I decided to make the front and back separately, instead of knitting in the round, though I may try it that way another time. I was afraid it would be too round, and I didn't want to fool with blocking; it's an ornament, it's supposed to be quick and easy! So here's what I did (my way of explaining may or not make sense to anyone else, so by all means, ask 'em if you got 'em):

I used stash yarn and size 2 US needles. Your results may vary. Gauge is hardly an issue here, unless you want a perfect fit for your Barbie doll.

Cast on 14.
K1P1 for 4 rows.
K1 row, P1 row six times.
K2tog, K across to last two stitches, K2tog. Purl next row. Repeat these two rows twice more, totaling 6 rows.
Bind off.

Do that once and you have a front, again and you have a back.

I actually sewed the front and back together before I made the sleeves, since I wanted to see how it would look. Turns out, it looked like this:


Promising enough that I continued!

For the sleeves, I cast on 12 stitches.
K1 row, P1 row five times.
K2tog, K across to last two stitches, K2tog. Purl next row. Repeat these two rows once more, totaling 4 rows.
K1P1 for 4 rows.
Bind off.

Do that twice and you have two sleeves.

I didn't do the world's best job of "finishing", but hey, I'm pleased with it anyway, and my parents liked it, too. Which is far more important.