Christmas Ornaments Already!

As you can probably tell from the title, I have already started upon my Christmas ornaments. I had decided I would start on Christmas stuff in August, and I just barely accomplished it by creating my Christmas items on August 31st.
Anyways, the ornament you see to the left was made from a pattern out of Melanie Falick's Handknit Holidays. It is the first pattern in the book, and is simply called Knitted Ornaments. I made it a lot different than recommended, though. I made it on four size 9 needles and used the same yarn as my mom used on my jacket, and also a shiny gold yarn that was sitting around in the stash and has lost all memory of its name. The shiny yarn really is quite shiny, even though the picture doesn't quite do the shininess justice. The finished product was just about the size of my fist. I may add some embroidery later to make it look a little prettier.

Now the ornament you see to the right did not use the shiny golden yarn, but it did use up every last scrap of the yarn from my jacket. It is crocheted by a pattern I made up simply in my head. It is about 1/4 of the size of the other ornament. I chained 12 stitches then crocheted around for a while and then started increase one every other stitch. Then I crocheted for a while and when I had about a yard or two of yarn left I went ahead and started decreasing. Then I made the chain, and crocheted it to the ornament so that it loops to make a hanger. And even though you can't see it hear, there are actually two loops. I decided I might as well add that interesting effect instead of wasting 2 feet of yarn. I might also embellish this ornament further, too.

Now off to do some more knitting over this long Labor Day weekend!