Winter Woollies

November in the UK is blustery and cruel, the nights drawing in, the storms off the Atlantic battering us down. My brain cries out for warm things! I've been working on my Knotty Gloves, which are all finished save the fingers of one hand.

Here's the completely-finished one:



I've also been chugging away at designing my niece's Christmas stocking, an assignment passed to me from my mother, who had originally planned on doing it. I wanted a nice fair-isle-y challenge, so I've been working very hard on charting dogs and horses.

Here's the whole colour plan:


The bottom of the foot is based on the Royal Christmas pattern. (Ravelry link.)

Here's the chart:



And the stocking in progress:



Stranded knitting is fun! I've been using a strickfingerhut (knitting thimble, but isn't strickfingerhut just so much fun to say??), and I'm having a good time with it this time around, it seems to strand just enough and I don't need to worry about tension except on long sections.

And that bit with the horses? You'll notice it's not there. After thinking through all the intarsia in the round options, I decided to just duplicate stitch it!