A Christmassy Five

December 16th

We are now down to single figures before the big day and I am in my element.  This time of year brings extra work and I know that can be stressful and tiring but really for me, it's just the best time of the year.  The twinkly lights that you see everywhere light up what would otherwise for me be such a dark depressing time of year that just the lights lift my spirits without even all the other goodies. Over the past week I have continued to bake, entertain, shop, wrap and decorate as well as trying to live the day to day life.  I'm sure I'm in good company with you all, want to take a peak?



Slippers for Christmas

I have been making these slippers for years, a pattern passed down to me from Mamma.  Pop over to the post and see how to make the slippers and how to Christmas pimp them too!  Christmas slippers

St Lucia Day

This week saw the annual feast of St Lucia and I shared a classic saffron bun recipe with everyone. Eat and enjoy, this is a perfect bake for those who do not like to over indulge in the very sweet cookies around at this time of year.  St Lucia

Scandinavian Mulled Wine

The Scandinavian version of mulled I must confess to loving it,  much more than the mulled wine we are served here in the UK.  I share 3 different recipes with you on this post.  Gløgg

Let's hide the packaging!

Alcohol is expensive in Norway and the cheapest way to buy wine is by the box.  Siting a box on the dinner table is not so attractive and the Scandi's came up with a clever way of covering it up.  On this post I share with you my pattern for a knitted wine box cover.  Wine box cover



A taste of something different

Mostly in Norway Christmas cookies have some form of spice added to them from ground cardamon to cloves  and many in between.  so when i can across this cookie from Norway, I had to give it a try. Great for those not a spiced cookie lover Finger Cream Cookies

Joining in with  Amy sharing a Christmas Five with you all.  Apologies for not commenting on your blogs last week, I will endevour to rectify that and will be coming around for this week too, I love seeing what you have to share.

♥   Enjoying the days of Advent   ♥

Christmas wine cover

A wine box cover

December 15th



Have you ever been to Norway?  Do you know how expensive alcohol is over there?  You need to take a mortgage out to be able to even sip alcohol.  You can buy beer at the supermarket, but not on a Sunday and anything stronger regardless of the day, you need to go to the government controlled 'Vinopolis.'   The cheapest bottle of wine is about £15, last summer I ordered a glass of wine, not in the expensive capitol, it cost me £11, I nearly fell off my chair and not even from over drinking, who could on those prices!






That said the cheapest way to drink wine is to buy it by the wine-box, the most common size being a 3 liter.  Many Norwegian pattern books provide knitted wine-box covers and I thought it would be fun to design my own for Christmas, it does mean that I now need to go out and buy myself a box...

Wine box cover
Using double knit yarn
Colour A 100g ~ on the chart this is grey
Colour B    50g ~ on the chart this is white
Colour C scraps of yarn ~ on the chart this is red

Cast on 92 stitches in colour A
Knit 2 rounds, use a stitch marker to help keep track
Row 3 creates space holes for the elastic at the bottom of the wine box, to create this:

Make one, knit 2 together for the entire round. (I actually have not put elastic in my wine cover, I quite like the rolled up effect, but may add it in at a later date.)

The first row after will be difficult to knit, you will still have 92 stitches.

Place stitch markers in each corner after 17, 29, 17, 29

Knit until it measures 4 cm

Tap hole created

We now continue with the single colour yarn A but we need to make a hole for the wine tap.  This means that we are not going to knit in the round for the next 8 rows, but will be knitting backwards and forwards...

K6, cast off 5 stitches, K6 (this is the first short side and would equate to 17 stitches)  Continue the row in knit.  As we have now cast off 5 stitches we will have to purl back on the next row and the following row will be knit.  Continue to alternate rows, knit and purl back and forth for 8 rows in total.

Beginning again on the short side K6, cast on 5 stitches and continue to knit to the end of the row. Continue to knit in the round for a further 2 rows.

Then begin your pattern or follow mine!  Remember that you will need to repeat the pattern twice on each row so that you have the short side pattern (in this case the hearts) followed by the long side pattern (in this case the deer) and need to repeat each again.

Chart for the long side
29 x 42

Chart for the short side
17 x 42

Here you see one long side and the front short side
(it has a red heart, the back short side does not)

Here we see the second long side with the deer
and the back short side, no red heart

Once you have completed the chart we need to begin to knit the top of the wine box cover.

Checking for size is very important

So to begin the decrease on the top of the wine box:

*K1, K2tog, K23, K2tog through the back loop, K2, K2tog, K11, K2tog through the back loop, K1* This completes half of the round, is one long side and one short side.  you now need to repeat between ** to complete the row, (88 stitches)

We are now going to repeat the above procedure on every row BUT where we have a run of knitting ie above K23 and K11 we need to reduce each one by 2 stitches each row, so the next row will be K21 and K19.

Continue with each rowing decreasing by 2 stitches until you are left with 7 stitches on the short side.  Cast off and if desired single crochet and the edge here where the handle should be and also around the tap hole on the short side.

Stitch markers so I knew where the corners were

Having made this during the summer I am delighted to bring this out now for the first time at Christmas.  I get pleasure every time I go to fetch myself a sneaky drink or three, hic ;)

Christmas  knitted wine box cover 

♥   We are almost into single figure count down to Christmas, yippee!  ♥