Holiday Crafting

Because there isn't quite enough to do around the holidays, what with getting the kids prepped for Christmas break at school and all the other random things going on, I decided to make Christmas (or Holiday or Winter or Seasonal or Etc.) cards this year. Of course the idea festered before I finally started them, and I'm not sure they'll get to anyone before Christmas - but everyone loves a New Years' card, right? Granted it was a bit of a process, but I'm kind of psyched about how they've turned out. The inside of the card features a sweet stamp with a generic seasonal greeting that I figure anyone can appreciate. It will very likely make an encore performance at future holidays.

Surprise, surprise, I went with a snowflake motif.

Adventures with Visors

My friend, K, is my hook-up for tasty treats from Durango, CO, where I lived for about 2 years. I babysat for her two older boys while living out there, and have knit several hats for her youngest. I get the best selection of coffee, honey, chocolate, etc in exchange for knitting things. Not a bad swap in my mind. Several months ago (okay, okay, it was probably late summer) I emailed her that I'd run out of the last of my Durango Coffee Co. coffee and had a craving for more. Shortly thereafter, coffee beans arrived in the mail, and email arrived in my inbox that she wanted a hat for herself, and she'd send me some ideas.

She decided on a visor beanie (pageboy, newsboy, etc), and sent links to two hats from REI: a cute visor beanie (Pistil Jax Visor Beanie) and a fun stripey beanie (prAna Multistripe Beanie). I hadn't make a visor beanie before, although I'd seen a few friends make them. I figured I was up for the challenge - especially the challenge of making the hat without a pattern. I can follow patterns, no problem, but always end up changing them so for this hat I figured I could just wing it.