Saltwater Gifts

by Elizabeth Sullivan November 15, 2020

Saltwater Gifts is the third book in the Saltwater Knits series written by Christine LeGrow and Shirley A. Scott. Like the first two books, Saltwater Mittens and Saltwater Classics, this book is grounded in Newfoundland tradition and includes many quotes, stories, and beautiful photography. 

Saltwater Gifts includes a wider variety of patterns than the previous two books. There are several patterns for trigger mitts, mittens and gloves, some for hats, slippers, and socks, and some home accessory patterns - great for gift giving!

The first pattern that caught my eye while flipping through the book was this Diamond Cushion cover. Based on a traditional diamond trigger mitt, this would be a nice project to try out stranded colourwork without worrying about mitten shaping at the same time.

There are quite a few simpler patterns including this Guernsey Hot Water Bottle Cover. I have given a few handknit water bottle covers as gifts over the years and they have always been well received and appreciated!

There are many 2-colour patterns as expected, but also several patterns that use multiple colours, like the intriguing Icebergs in June mittens. Multi-coloured patterns like these are great for stashbusting and using up odd bits of yarn.

Most of the accessory patterns in the book are written for an adult medium, but there are a couple of mittens patterns for kids including these Fancy Mittens for youngsters given in two sizes: 3-5 and 6-8 years. Size changes are usually achieved by changing gauge, needle size, and weight of yarn. With this in mind, a confident knitter could use this technique for any of the patterns in the book to adjust the sizing a bit as needed.

As someone with perpetually cold feet, the idea of wool socks topped off with these Seafaring Slippers sounds very appealing to me right now! They're knit with a double strand of worsted weight wool to make a quick bulky knit slipper.

While I'm daydreaming about knitting gifts for myself, I still have not knit myself a pair of trigger mitts yet and I really like both of these patterns: Chicken Feet on the left and Maura Falten on the right. Which would you choose?

I'll most likely use our Winfield worsted weight for this project, since it's a good substitute for the Briggs and Little Regal called for in the patterns. If you're looking to do some gift knitting (and don't already have a stash full of yarn to use up) we've paired this book as a kit with some of our favourite Winfield colour combinations.

I hope you've enjoyed this little taste of what you can find in Saltwater Gifts. There are 26 patterns in total including more mitten and glove patterns, socks, hats, tea cozies, even a dog bandana and gloves duo - truly something for everyone.

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