knitted lights | PDXKnitterati

a hawaiian honu green turtle rests on lava rock

I’m a little slow getting ready for the holidays, but I work best under pressure. We arrived home from Kona (Hawaii) on Thursday night, and Friday I put new lights on the porch.

blue and white icicle lights decorating front porch gutters

It wasn’t raining, so the timing was perfect.

wire christmas tree on top of the piano with assorted ornaments

I put up my tree, on top of the piano. That surfing Santa is finally getting his legs glued back onto the surfboard this year; one of our cats knocked him off the piano years ago. I also put up the Christmas stockings on the mantel.

five handknit christmas stockings hanging from the fireplace mantel

Old picture, same stockings!

christmas wreath with knitted bow made from wire lights

I’ve added my knitted lights bow to my Christmas wreath. I’m skipping the knitted ribbon with dpns, because last year the dpns got…moldy? Mildewed? Gross, whatever. The bow is fine by itself.

bottles of Irish Cream made with Tullamore DEW whiskey, and two korknisse with knit sweaters and hats

I made a double batch of Irish Cream from the recipe in this post, and I’ll make one more batch today.

ginger molasses cookies decorated with icing

I helped a friend decorate cookies. Aren’t these cute?

a little cork person wearing a knitted sweater and hat made from orange and purple Malabrigo worsted yarn

And I knit this little korknisse for Carole at coffee this morning.

Shopping is done. There are a few presents to wrap, a little more housecleaning to do (tomorrow, because it needs to be tidy the day after). And we’re hosting Christmas dinner here on Wednesday.

Lots of pictures in this post, so I’ll do a Hawaii post separately. We had a great time!

Are you ready for the holidays? I actually cleaned the wax off our menorahs, so I’m ready for Christmas AND Hanukkah!

The strangest fiber I’ve knit with so far? Candy laces from IKEA. But then I saw knitted fairy lights in my Twitter feed, so I had to try it.

I wanted to knit a ribbon of light for my Christmas wreath. I used an e-loop cast on (too hard to work long tail cast on with wire) and cast on 5 stitches using US size 9 needles. Why size 9? I want the needles to stay in the project, and my straight needles were too long! These are the biggest dpns I have that I don’t care about scratching with wire. I wasn’t ready to sacrifice my ebony needles. Stitches have to be pretty loose on the needle so you can get your other needle into the stitch; wire is not stretchy like wool.

I’d really like a longer ribbon, but the product description online was inaccurate, so I have two strands this length instead of one long one. Here’s the first set! 32 feet/100 LED lights. I may make a little bow with the second set, and see if I can hide a second battery box behind the wreath somehow. You have to decide if you’re casting on from the battery box end, or the far end. I used the far end because I wanted to end with my needles near the battery pack so I could tuck it near the top of the wreath.

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Action shot! The lights are programmable to be steady, twinkle, or six other patterns.

After this bit of fun, I went looking for the original source for this idea, and it’s from @leila_raven on Instagram. She actually has instructions with needle sizes and cast on numbers for a knitted swatch. I didn’t realize there would be instructions, so I just cast on and ran with it. It couldn’t be harder than knitting with candy laces, right?

Happy holidays!