Merry Ramen to all and to all a good sauce!

My super secret holiday gift project was ....

The Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Made with love for my wonderful friend, Carol. I gave it to her at knit night on Monday, finally! Now I can stop being so hush-hush about it :)

Here is another shot, with a few other homemade ornaments, AND an official White House Christmas ornament from 2009.

A wider view, taken by my 3 1/2 year old. Obviously, right? :p

His Noodliness was created with white yarn that will felt, 2 googly eyes, 2 styrofoam balls, tempera paint, craft glue, and a few cleverly placed toothpicks.

The tentacles were made with Patons Classic Wool in white on size 13 straights. I cast on as many stitches as I wanted the leg to be, then cast off all but one stitch, leaving the last one on the needle. Then, I cast on another row of stitches, then cast them off. Keep doing this until you have as many tentacles as you like. Using waste yarn, I picked up loose stitches between all the legs to make them more secure, then tossed it in my front loading washer for a half hour using warm water. Front loaders don't felt as severely as a top loader so, I wasn't worried about losing length.

This was the only holiday project I worked on... and I had such high hopes for gifting knitted items to a few folks I love so much. In the end, sometimes it just works out better this way. I had so much fun making FSM, and got so many giggles out of seeing him in our tree here at home, I'm about to make another for our family!

Have a wonderful holiday, whatever celebration you and your loved ones enjoy!