Crafts for Christmas Gifts

I told myself last year that I was going to give myself a break from making Christmas gifts in 2014 after the sock avalanche of Christmas 2013. You know what? I lied to myself and I ended up making a lot of last minute gifts. My hands didn't appreciate it, but people liked them!

For a bunch of folks I made some quilted pot holders:





I made 16 total pot holders to give for Christmas. My sewing machine started acting up toward the end, so there was some struggling, but I managed to make things work until I could finish these. Ended up finishing the binding by hand, though, because I'm not good at machine binding yet, and that took ages.



And then as a last minute addition to some things for my brothers, I crocheted these washcloths up:



These two cloths were done using the Seeing Squares Dishcloth pattern.



And these two cloths were done using the Three Color Simple Stitch Dishcloth pattern.

Both were made with Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in Stone and Lime. They were nice, simple crochet patterns that were quick to get through and look nice. I'm glad I managed to fit them into the few days left before Christmas.


It was nice to do some crocheting. I've been a pretty steady knitter for the past couple of years, but my roots are in crocheting. It was very comfortable slipping back into that mode and I think I'm going to look for some crochet projects to add to my queue.


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Post-Christmas Wrap Up

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday. Here's my obligatory post-Christmas wrap up.

Firstly, some trees:


The 9 foot family room tree!



The 6 foot living room tree!



A bunch of nut crackers!



The mini-tree! And a pile of Christmas cards. I keep all my Christmas cards like a card hoarder.



Christmas was good this year. A little different, but good. My mom found a Hobbit menu online and shifted a couple of the meals around a little (mainly to spread out breakfast, second breakfast, and elevensies into breakfast and elevensies). So we had breakfast and opened a couple of presents each. We headed off to church for a mass that mainly consists of Christmas carols and confusion because they changed a bunch of responses a few years back. I only go to mass once or twice a year, so I haven't learned the new stuff yet.

Then we came back home and had elevensies and finished opening gifts from the family room tree. Then lunch. Then joking around and watching the Batman TV show marathon on TV while we waited for The Gabbers, J, and pups to arrive! Once they arrived, it was more gifting, afternoon tea, and a permanent puppy placement. My mom got a corgi! (I will post all about the little troublemaker soon!)

The Gabbers, J, and remaining pups had to leave, then the rest of us played board games, ate dinner, played more board games, had dessert, and conked out for the day.

All in all, it was a good time. Puppies, board games, and tons of food can't go wrong.


My parents spoiled us this year. My mom just got a new car because the van wasn't making it through a week with her job, so money's been tighter around the house. She gave us a theme list to give her this year: a) something we need, b) something we want, c) a book, and d) an article of clothing.

But she surprised us with stuff like this:



- 2 Star Wars Lego sets
- 2015 Road Atlas (after my siblings and I got horrifyingly turned around in New Jersey this past summer, we need them)
- Groot and Rocket T-Shirt
- Hawkeye Signs T-shirt
- Made by Mom alpaca cowl
- Books 2 and 3 in the All the Wrong Questions series by Lemony Snicket
- Faeries' Tales by Brian and Wendy Froud
- 2 4 oz braids of BFL wool for spinning
- 3 new bobbins for my wheel


And then my siblings got me these gems:


I still can't believe that Pickleface actually found a copy of D&D Clue. I've been looking for it forever.


Thanks to my folks for these fantastic gifts.

And thank you to my friends who got me gifts this year too! You folks are amazing. I got Bananagrams from friends' annual Christmas party gift swap and Cthulhu Fluxx, a sock loom knitting book, and a box of fancy teas from some folks! :D



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Christmas Knit Gifts

Part of the reason why this blog was so quiet in December was trying to shuffle gifting and preparing for the reopening of my Etsy shop. I'm not going to show off any shop things here yet, but it's far enough into January to show the three knit gifts I made this year.






Both of my brothers are big gamers and their favourite places to game are also the coldest places in our house (and probably the older younger brother's dorm - those places are never warm). Figured some fingerless mitts were in order to keep their hands from icing over.

The first pair are Vancouver Fog in Lion Brand Tweed Stripes Woodlands for the older younger brother.

The second pair are a half improvised/half Doctor Who Wrist Warmers in Red Heart and Lion Brand Wool-Ease Worsted Weight.

The monster is an improvised design of mine made of small bits of yarn from my Small Bits O' Yarn bucket for my friend's kidlet. Despite mid-January rapidly approaching, I haven't yet managed to get my butt over to my friend's place for gift giving, so this gift is still chilling out over here for the moment. Luckily, this is his first proper Christmas (he was only three months old at Christmas last year), so he's young enough to not notice his weird uncle's terrible grasp of time. Hopefully.


And these aren't knit-gifts, but I did make a small terrarium that I was rather proud of for a friend, but I completely neglected to get a photograph. I did a couple of embroidered moleskines for some other friends that are not (yet?) a part of the group going up in the Etsy shop later and I also completely neglected to snap a few photos of those.

Methinks I need a better grasp of things I ought to have my camera out for.

Christmas Things

December's flown by, guys. I've been meaning to put up this post for a couple of weeks now and just haven't been able to manage it.

This post is about some new things that have made it into my Christmas decorations this year. Figured I'd better get this up tonight, right?


This is actually a necklace kit that I've had lurking around in my craft stuff for a million years. Got it from an event thing when I was a kid. The whole thing was assembled except for the googly eyes. I stuck those on and tied it to my bedside lamp.



A felt gingerbread house. This is the start of the felt theme this year.



I kind of went crazy on the felt ornament kits for kids this year. This kit came with two felt stockings.



This one came with these three ornaments, but I decided to swap out the embroidery thread with the pile of different colored threads that I keep in a tea tin. I used to do cross stitch, but I don't think I did it properly because I ended up with at least half of the thread left over. I like these colors better than the ones that came with the kit and I have no idea how you are supposed to make all three of these ornaments with the amount of thread provided.



I didn't make these, but they look like I could have, which is an aesthetic I enjoy in holiday decorations. Also, cheap. Each one was a dollar.



Funny wooden Christmas tree. Again, I didn't make it, but it's not unlike some things I've made before. Also, I like the colors. It's not as bright as the non-typical colored decorations (non-red and non-green) that are popular this year, but it's something a little different.



These are two different kits. One is the tree pillow thing. It looks better in real life than it did on the package, so that's pretty awesome.

The second is the four bear ornaments. Again, I used my own embroidery thread because the stuff in the kit wasn't easy to tie knots into.



ALL OF THE HOT GLUE. Pretty sure I burnt my fingertips off with these. Another kids' craft kit, though. And the ribbon for the ornaments is from the wreath kit down below.



Felt wreath time. This one I definitely changed a bit. There's supposed to be a whole bunch of those green leaves, but I couldn't arrange it in a good way, so the two were fine. Also, it's supposed to hang from a white ribbon, but the felt was too flimsy to stay flat when hanged like that. This is held onto the wall using a couple of tiny Command hooks and spare hook tape. Yep.



Another thing I didn't make, but it looks like I might have. Those are the non-typical colors that are popular that I mentioned before, if you didn't know. Only more sparkly. But this one was felt and cheap (somewhere in the range of $5-$8 when I picked it up).



And I made Christmas cards this year! Embroidered ones because I'm a crazy person.


Yep. Crafts. I enjoy them.


Also, I can't post anything else crafty I've been doing because they're gifts. Once those are all set, I'll do a post.