Christmas is coming

A week ago, getting ready for Christmas seemed like an impossible task. I was weeks behind with work (and I still am!) and the house was a tip. We go to Norway every other Christmas but this year we're staying home. This weekend we made some major progress on the Christmas preparations. I've spent some time tidying up and there's still lots to do but downstairs is more or less done so on Sunday afternoon we finally got the Christmas decorations out. 

I'm very fussy about Christmas decorations. My taste is definitely influenced by traditional Norwegian Christmas decorations. Because we're only home every other Christmas, we only decorate every other year. This year we bought a fake tree for the first time ever and I like it a lot more than I thought I would.  I also treated myself to a new candle sleigh (picture above) which I love.

Most of our decorations are from Norway except for the tree decorations. We're spending Christmas Day and Boxing Day alone with the girls. It'll be the first time we have Christmas alone with the girls. We normally spend Christmas with my parents or Simon's parents. My parents are arriving on the 27th to spend a week with us.

Simon's parents are spending Christmas in Scotland with Simon's sister this year so last night we invited them over for a little mini celebration before they left. I made Norwegian waffles which went down a treat. They're a family favourite and I made a huge stack of them (that's only half on the table).

In between catching up on pattern writing and admin work, I've also done a lot of knitting. I finished my new neon shawl last night. I've got another shawl blocking right now so this one will be blocked tonight, hopefully. I can't wait to wear it! It's going to be big and colourful. The pattern will be out in January. I've got three new patterns due to be published in the new year and I'm so excited to share them with you. I'm also releasing this autumn's club patterns in January.

I've had a design forming in my head for a few weeks and decided to use three beautiful colours of Debbie Bliss Fine Donegal which is a sock weight yarn. I'm using three shades of purple for a gradient look. 

I swatched three different stitch patterns. I've decided to use the pattern on the middle swatch but I really like the lilac swatch too so will use that stitch pattern for another design soon. I'm knitting the original sample in my size so I can wear it and then I'll knit one up a spare sample to use for shows.

This design is part of a new collection I'd like to publish in spring. I'm not sure whether to publish them individually as they're ready or wait till they're all ready. 

I've got another idea which I'm very tempted to cast on too but I've got a deadline project I need to finish by the second week of January, as soon as the yarn gets here. So I'm trying to resist.

How are your Christmas preparations going? Have you finished any gift knitting? I rarely knit any gifts. I've knitted a shawl for a friend and I'm knitting a pair of socks for Simon but they may not be finished in time. Will you be casting on for a selfish knit for Christmas? Tell me in the comments.