The Finishing Touches

As much as I'd like to spend a weekday at home with my yarn, it doesn't often happen. Yesterday, however, I found myself in just that unusual situation. What started as a tickle in my throat on Tuesday turned into a fireball in my throat and kept me awake most of the night, so I was home nursing the beginning of cold yesterday. I was a little too out of it to knit anything too complicated, so I figured it was a perfect time to put the finishing touches on one of my holiday knitting projects -- time to sew the buttons!

Pattern: Felted Trees from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes (100% Peruvian highland wool), colorways Grass, Fern, and Avocado, two skeins each
Needles: US 8 (5.0 mm) dpns
Started/Completed: October 26/November 4
Mods: I made a mistake on the smallest tree (my own fault for not reading the directions carefully enough) and knit the largest tree single stranded because I would have run out of yarn if I'd knit it double stranded

I'm really not sure why it took me so long to finish these. They knit up very quickly and were felted in my mother's washing machine while we watch the election returns. Yep, that was a month ago. I had a somewhat reasonable excuse in not having any buttons for the embellishment, but that was soon solved by a trip to Michael's. I guess I just needed an hour or two with nothing else to do.

The buttons are nothing special; I just picked up a few bags of button assortments and then spent about half an hour with all of them spread out in front of me. The real challenge was in finding enough that matched to cover each tree.

I really like how these turned out. Yes, they're a little mishapen and lumpy, but I think that adds to the rustic look, don't you? I will say that the double-stranded trees are a little sturdier than the single-stranded tree. Notice how the front two trees have a little roll at the bottom? The large tree stands up just fine, but if I were knitting these again, I'd get a little more yarn.