Gifts for Knitters

Our little knitting group had their Christmas party the other night. This year we chose to have a potluck house do over a restaurant meal and I think the idea worked really well! It allowed us to bring food we all enjoyed and have a setting where we could easily knit and chat and really catch up with each other.
The lasting impression of the evening I think was one of carbs. Oh so many carbs....oh so tasty...

The concept was a little new to us as a group so organisation wasn't quite fine tuned. Somehow everyone brought doughy, bready or cakey things.  I tried valiantly to add vegetables to my pasta salad but not even those could cut through the general wheaten goldness of it all. Best of all, when organising the party, it seemed like everyone was going to bring hoummous for our token vegan...in the end, noone did!

Nonetheless, it was all delicious. I parked myself next to these gorgeous Arab pastries and didn't move for the rest of the night. I even squirelled some away to take home and had them for breakfast the next day!





The other great success of the night was our round of Secret Santa. We do try and help our Santas by filling out a little questionnaire beforehand with things like colours we love or hate to work with, our favourite fibres, complete no-nos and non-knitting things we might also like. My tip if you are buying for a knitter? Stay clear of pastels and fun-fur, those made everyones no-no list! My other tip? Ask them if they've got their eye on something in particular. It may seem like less of a surprise then, but it will be something they will definitely use and probably think of you each time they bring that tool or book out for a moment of crafting. Knitting and other crafts are often thought of as a bit of a frivolity and new tools or fancy yarns can fall quite far down the budget priorities in every day life, so receiving something as simple as a cutting mat and roller (as one of the girls asked for, within our £10 budget) as a present is really special.

Here are a few of the other lovely gifts that we exchanged:

Personally hand-dyed yarn for someone with a love of purple:

 

Bright chunky non-animal yarn and home-made vegan chocolates:

 

 

My choice of fibre from Hilltop Cloud fibres, a shop I know my giftee loves....I may or may not have accidentaly bought something for myself while I was there...oops

 

And the gift that I received and that really took me aback by being the most perfect pick for me from the more obscure section of "non-yarn things I also like": A set of small, hand thrown pottery bowls from St Ives

Most surprisingly of all, the person who gave me these has never been to my house or seen the Shelf Of Brown Pottery!

So there we are. We knitters, we like presents and food, we do.