Somehow, I blinked and it’s November.

Which means that I’ll blink again and it’ll be Christmas.

Which means that I need to get cracking on some of my handmade Christmas gifts that I’m planning for teachers and loved ones.  This year, I’m going for cozy warm cowls for everyone, and I found this pattern, which looks amazing and couldn’t be easier to make.

They knit up super fast and squishy soft in Lion Brand’s Thick and Quick yarn, and their “Glacier” color was calling my name – just a subtle shade of robin’s egg blue that goes with anything.

It’s an easy moss/seed stitch, which means that you can do it without thinking much and not need to count stitches. And the single infinity twist you give it before seaming it means that it lays perfectly when you put it on.  

If you’re looking for quick and easy knits to make for the holidays, I highly recommend this one.

As for our homeschooling, we’ve been chugging along, trying a little of this and a little of that. The recent election made for some interesting lessons. We have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia and thoroughly enjoying the series. I showed them the movie on Netflix this weekend and they loved it. Recently we learned Roman numerals, so it’s been fun giving the kids numbers and letting them figure out the Roman numeral equivalent or vice versa. My four year old likes to just say random letters in an effort to join in.  Today we began an experiment about acids and bases in which we dissolve an egg shell in a glass of white vinegar. Somehow in all my years of science classes, I’d never done this one, so we’ll all enjoy checking on our egg throughout the next few days. We continue to enjoy baking as part of our curriculum and made a nice big batch of pumpkin muffins and a loaf of pumpkin bread today, so the house smells like autumn. We made this Cranberry Christmas Cake over the weekend, too, just to see whether we’d like the recipe or not. There’s none left, so it’s safe to say that we loved it.

I’d love to know if you have any quick and easy knitting patterns that you like to give as Christmas gifts.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep stitching amid the chaos…