Was it a promising start? Yes. Did I find something I wish I'd done differently (namely the decreases...I want the solid line to carry from the inside and curve along the expand-y gold bit, not go straight up the outside of each panel)? Alas, yes. Did I consider just dropping back and fixing it, even though fixing stuff in brioche is a bit of a bear? Yup. Did I even, in fact, actually drop back and fix a couple of spots to  make sure I truly preferred one way over the other? Yup. That's when this that first picture, needle-less [...]

No really...I thought it was a flawless plan. Put the tree on the porch. Keep the cat away from the tree. Keep the needles away from the toes. And yes, yes that did work. It did! There are no cats in the tree and no needles in my socks. But...Also it's really cold. And all that water froze. Oops. Here's hoping that your clever plans come out slightly better than mine. One last reminder that all the knits on the tree (plus all the paper stars behind it) are allllll together in a bundle. Info right over here for anyone so [...]

TL:DR for anyone else with a short attention span, all eight of these patterns + the two star books are over on this post for any Rampant Nonsense folks, they'll be there through the end of January. Did I wake up Friday, decide fuck it, I have enough stuff to fill a tree, let's be fucking festive, drive to a wee piece of land I might have bought earlier this year, cut down a little tree (yes, yes with garden shears), shove it in the front seat of my car, and drive it home? Yup. Did I spend Saturday and Sunday [...]

I am doing a tree. With things I've made. And I'm going to do up a big bundle with all the patterns for whatever ends up on the tree...⁠ ⁠Details to come (quick and dirty summary here, the more thorough version will have to wait till tomorrow). But oh...if you've ever wanted to get a whole bunch of our little friends all in one place...this is going to be a heck of a way to do it!⁠

Ok, folks are smitten, let's run down the details. First, the pattern is Drifts and it's in the usual spots (ravelry, payhip). And yes, it walks you through four different versions of the embroidery so you can make lots of different styles!⁠ ⁠ The knitting on these is super chill. I did (most of) mine in various whites, and it's pretty much all just stockinette in the round. I used everything from sock weight (on the smallest ones) up through worsted weight (on the biggest ones), because knitting is stretchy and inanimate objects do not complain about how things fit. [...]

Ok, people want the bits. And I get that, I do! But the truth is they are a) hard to find, b) expensive even if you do find them, and c) irritating to use. As in, the existing commercial tools to make these...well...kinda suck. And if you like to make the fancier versions of the stars, you're probably going to be frustrated with them. So I will tell you what I can, but with the caveats that they are only sometimes available, they're gonna seem awfully expensive, and you're going to say rude things when you use them. And the [...]