Window 1

Merry Advent season! Have you opened the first window of your Advent calendar yet? I most certainly have. What a lovely excuse to eat chocolate first thing in the morning. 😀

This year I decided to make one for my blog as well. First, I only planned to publish some Christmas ornament pattern and over time it evolved into this bigger project until I realized: This is turning into an Advent calendar.

Basic Pattern Instructions

For most of the ornaments I used “Cotton Time” by Schachenmayr, mostly because I simply have a lot of it at home for one reason or the other. I knitted with needles 3.5 and filled with basic crafting patting like I would use to fill stuffed animals. I do this pretty close to the end of the knitting, ca. at round 35.

As for the knitting, I tried a few different ornament base patterns out and in the end I settled for my own combination that I liked the best. Here we go:

Increase:

• CO 8 sts on 4 needled and close to a round
• Rnd 1: k in front and back (16 sts)
• Rnd 3: *k1, M1, k3, M1, repeat from * (24 sts)
• Rnd 5: *k1, M1, k5, M1, repeat from * (32 sts)
• Rnd 7: *k1, M1, k7, M1, repeat from * (40 sts)
• Rnd 9: *k1, M1, k9, M1, repeat from * (48 sts)
• Rnd 11: *k1, M1, k11, M1, repeat from * (56 sts)
• Rnd 13: *k1, M1, k13, M1, repeat from * (64 sts)
• Knit all even rounds

Plain:

• Rnd 14 – 27: Knit

Decrease:

• Rnd 28: *k1, k2tog, k11, k2tog, repeat from * (56 sts)
• Rnd 30: *k1, k2tog, k9, k2tog, repeat from * (48 sts)
• Rnd 32: *k1, k2tog, k7, k2tog, repeat from * (40 sts)
• Rnd 34: *k1, k2tog, k5, k2tog, repeat from * (32 sts)
• Rnd 36: *k1, k2tog, k3, k2tog, repeat from * (24 sts)
• Rnd 38: *k1, k2tog, k1, k2tog, repeat from * (16 sts)
• Rnd 40: *k2tog, repeat from * (8 sts)
• Knit all uneven rounds

Hanging:

K2tog, so that only 4 stitches remain. Now make an i-cord over 10 rows. Pull the remaining thread through the stitches and sew the ending to the beginning of the cord.

As always: Not yet used to writing patterns. So if anything is confusing or plain wrong, let me know and I’ll try to make it better. 🙂

So, let’s finally dive into our first pattern.

Starry Night

For this pattern I used the basic instructions as explained above. It is quite easy to do, even if you not knitted with beads before. The ones I got as “stars” are 6mm glass faceted beads from efco. Before you start knitting, simply string the beads onto the yarn.

I followed no specific pattern to incorporate them, only I started in round 17 to knit them in. To do this, I followed the instructions in Vogue Knitting for the slip stitch.

First, knit to the spot where the bead should appear. Bring the yarn with the bead on it to the front. Then slip one stitch and bring the yarn back behind. But leave the pearl in front! Continue knitting and make sure, the next knitting is firm so there is no loose thread in front, only the bead.

Well, it is easy as that. Continue with the pattern until the end.

For my ornament I used 50 beads in total.