Baby, It's Cold Outside

Continuing on my path to ignore holiday crafting for others until the last possible minute, I have been foolishly working on.....foot garments. It HAS been cold, and this seems a reasonable way to handle the freeziness of it all. I'm on Sock #2 (of 2, just in case y'all were wondering) in the Helloyarn "Dusk" colorway. The yarn is a joy to work with - super squooshy, such vibrant colors, interesting pooling, not splitty at all.



I should be a good little crafter lady and get into the holiday hub-bub, but it hasn't really happened yet.

Miss Alayne was kind enough to send me some remnants of alpaca that she happened to have in her stash, in just the colorway I was seeking in order to complete the Anthropologie Hayride Capelet. After binding off, I had about....2 yards of yarn left - most certainly not enough for an I-Cord and pompoms! So making some cord is on the agenda, and then quick-like-a-bunny writing up the rest of this pattern (I'm halfway there!) for Miss Max to test-knit it (and then have one of her very own). I've got to tell ya, though....I am LOATHE to make any sort of significant length of I-Cord, donchaknow. In fact, I am loathe even to have others do it. Nonetheless, I think I've found a decent solution:



This is my super-cheap modified Lucet. I saw these at Rhinebeck (much MUCH nicer, though!), and they work in a similar way as spool-knitting. You wrap the yarn around a prong and flip the bottom loop over the top loop. Pull yarn to tighten, and rotate lucet in order to loop the other prong.....continue in this manner forEVER. You end up with a really nice boxy rope. I figured a lucet is nothing but 2 fixed prongs that you can easily slide some yarn over. I considered rigging up some chopsticks, but the plastic fork seemed All Class for this endeavor.

I'm taking suggestions for fast, cheap, outta-control holiday gifts I can make - any ideas?