Carrie’s all set for winter now – I put the finishing touches on her hat, scarf & mitten set last night. Of course, I still haven’t finished mine…
Crafts
Twelfth Day
On the twelfth day of Christmas, I (finally) give to you…
Pictures of all of the gifts I made!
Next year, in addition to starting early, I’m going to document my projects as a go along. I forgot to take pictures of some of the things I gave away. As silly as it sounds, that makes me a little sad…
Two Right Mittens
Or, why it’s occasionally a good idea to actually read the pattern..
I think I’ve done something to anger the knitting gods. And it all started with a quest for a hat to match Carrie’s winter coat. I had no idea when I bought it that every shade of pink yarn in my stash would clash horrifically. As a matter of fact, I scoured three yarn shops for the perfect shade of pink in some sort of wool or wool blend, and finally had to settle for using an acrylic/cotton blend. Carrie showed a preference for a striped hat (vs. a cute little solid colored cabled hat) when I showed her some options, so I found four pretty heathery colors (but still, acrylic?!?) and bought one skein of each. Here’s the set as of this morning:
So far, I’ve had to knit the hat twice – despite swatching the yarn and measuring the head in question, the first attempt turned out way to small. The scarf…well, it’s a scarf. It will hopefully look OK when it’s on. The weird wavy edge is entirely my fault, since I figured out after the first stripe that I’d never finish a striped stockinette scarf and just started randomly using various stitch patterns without worrying about whether they would pull in or bow out. I think if I knit fast enough I may be able to finish the second mitten before I run out of pink yarn. (Yes, I know how that sounds.)
Except.
I discovered last night, as I was halfway through frantically knitting that second mitten, that I had made it identical to the first. The first mitten. Which was the right mitten. Yes, folks, these are handed mittens. And since the last time I checked Carrie has one right hand and one left hand, it’s something of a problem that I knit two identical mittens.
Sigh.
This is not a good way to start out my 2007 knitting year. Maybe I should go work on a few quilts or something…oh, wait, my walking foot broke before Thanksgiving. OK, maybe some weaving? No…I broke the warp on my loom and have no idea how to fix it or re-warp it…
I think I’ll go read a book.
Sweet Doggie Dreams
Does anyone remember the strange dog fabric Carrie picked out a few months ago? Well, I didn’t use it for its intended purpose. Instead, I reverse-engineered the fancy envelope style pillowcases I ordered with Carrie’s toddler-sized pillow and made one out of this fabric:
She was so excited when I put it on her pillow earlier. And the great part is that it only took me about a half-hour to make – which included the reverse engineering. I’m going to have to hit the after-Christmas fabric sales and pick up some cute flannel fabric to a few more pillowcases. (And if I can find pillow forms this size in an actual store they would make great gifts!)
I’m Ready For December!
Gifts finished: 22
Gifts in progress: a couple of really small things
Gifts unstarted: maybe one other small thing?
I finished all of my original gifts. Every last one! I have a couple of little things I’ve added to the list because, well, because I can. We’ve purchased or ordered almost all the things that aren’t going to be handmade as well, so for all intents and purposes I’m ready for Christmas.
We also hung the outside wreaths and put the electric candles in the windows. All that’s left is wrapping the gifts, putting up the tree, and baking cookies with Carrie. I can’t remember ever being this far ahead of things, but it was worth all the self-imposed stress I put myself through for the past few weeks to know that I don’t have to do that in December!
However, if one more person that I’ve already made or purchased a gift for tells me that they don’t want a gift, next year I’m totally going to figure out how to make felted coal…
The Christmas Dress
We just had the best photo shoot ever with Carrie. She adores her Christmas dress, so much so that she wanted to wear it to bed tonight. I think she’s also pretty happy that her “baby” has a coordinating dress:
I am very pleased with how this dress came out, even with all of the issues with fit. This is the same pattern company as last year’s dress, and we really had the same problems last year, but the dress didn’t look quite so huge because it was in a fabric with more drape to it. So next year maybe I’ll try to find something from a different company!
Rip or Wrap?
This could be a new game show! I have the following for your consideration:
The face cloth on the left has been knitted 1.5 times. I was able to get the suggested gauge on the suggested needles. The reason I ripped it out halfway through was because (believe it or not) it was even more monstrously ugly, huge and crooked than it is now, so I went down a needle size. The face cloth on the right is more what I was going for (and is a different pattern). I am willing to give that one as a gift and actually sign my name to the card.
But unless someone comes up with a really compelling reason to not rip out the other one – such as “I have an incredibly frightening purple face cloth that looks exactly like that and I couldn’t possibly live without it!” – I’m going to enlist my mom’s help to rip out all 4 hours (that includes the ripping and re-knitting I’ve already done) of ugly knitting and re-knit that yarn with the other pattern.
I think it’s the (slight but important) difference between giving a “handmade” gift and a “homemade” gift.
And while we’re at it, does anyone have any suggestions for really fancy soaps or lotions that aren’t highly scented, as I don’t know the recipient’s preferences for fragrances?
Pass The Bandaids
You know it’s time to put down the sewing and go to bed when:
1. You poke your needle into the fabric for safe-keeping so you have both hands to adjust the button you’re trying to sew.
2. You grab the fabric, causing the needle to poke into your finger.
3. You let go in surprise (what is that needle doing there?) and move the needle over a bit.
4. Repeat step 2.
5. You decide that having the needle in the fabric is too dangerous, and that moving it to your mouth might be safer.
6. In the process of moving the needle to your mouth, you poke yourself in the chin hard enough to draw blood.
Um. Yeah. I think it’s time to put everything away and go to bed before I poke any more odd holes in my face!
Presenting: Devan II
I finished sewing the buttons on Devan the second this afternoon. Sorry for the really horrid indoor lighting picture. As far as I can tell the rain is going to continue until…well, probably until it snows. No more sunshine until next summer!
The baby this sweater is intended for is almost two months old. Luckily I didn’t plan for it to be newborn-sized!
This is the second time I’ve knit this pattern, and I still love it. However, I have learned three very important lessons:
1. Baby gifts should generally be knit out of something heavier than sock yarn. Otherwise they do not qualify as “quick knits”.
2. Navy blue (which is what the entire back of the sweater is) is a really boring color to knit.
3. The only thing more tedious than knitting navy blue yarn is sewing it up. Seriously, I thought I was going to become permanently cross-eyed trying to weave the seams.
But it turned out so cute I can’t be really all that frustrated with it!
Approaching The Finish Line
Gifts finished: 17
Gifts in progress: 4
Gifts unstarted: 1*
* This number doesn’t count food gifts or teeny-tiny projects.
It looks like there’s a very good possibility I’ll make my self-imposed deadline of Thanksgiving to finish everything I’m making for Christmas gifts. My goal is to have everything finished or purchased & wrapped by December 1st, along with having the house clean(ish) and decorated(ish). This way I can spend the weeks leading up to Christmas writing Christmas cards, baking cookies and enjoying my birthday!
Carrie’s dress is -> <- this close to being done. I have to figure out how I want to hem the pinafore (I'm not in love with the ruffle the pattern calls for) and I still haven't hemmed the sleeves of the dress. And apparently satin ribbon wide enough to be a sash doesn't exist...? But I'm so glad I started it so early! Thanks for all the compliments on it.
A very rare non-Christmas finished object has been sighted. It’s still lurking in the tote bag awaiting buttons, but I may be able to steal a few moments to finish that small task and take some pictures tomorrow. My blog has become very boring with all of this Christmas crafting going on.