Gifts for Little ones, Fall & Winter edition

Fall was a busy time for birthdays and birth days (I suppose it's that time of my life, when all the friends & coworkers are popping little ones out!), so here's a little round-up of five projects I managed to squeeze in between school obligations and house & yard chores. . . 

Small tote bag, with monogram, for the niece's 2nd birthday:

It was a big hit.

Pocket!

Two-Button Baby Cardi

I've had two skeins of bamboo sock yarn for ages, one white and one light green, and have gone back and forth about what to make with them. I've started a pair of socks for myself, a scarf, and even thought about a lacy tank, but none of the projects were what the yarn wanted to be (you knitters know what I'm talking about). So when a dear friend from my island days told me she was due this spring, I knew the yarn would finally find a home. My hope is that it will fit the little lady just as fall is setting in and the coastal air is beginning to cool.

Nate's Retro-inspired Hat

Sometimes you get lucky and get an inspired-one-of-a-kind-only-for-you knit hat from me. . . This winter, that was my friend Nate. While visiting him one night, we discovered that he has a late 80s/early 90s-era Patagonia fleece that has a pretty fantastic pattern in teal, grey, reddish, and black. The minute I saw the fleece I knew he needed a matching hat. It helped that he had seen the hats I had knit for Gala back in the fall (the big scholarship fundraiser at the ski academy where I work) and indicated he'd like one. The time had come to make that wish come true.

The fleece that started it all; it CLEARLY needs a matching hat.
Challenge accepted.
(not the best picture quality, but you get the idea)

Critter Cuteness: Knit Bunny

I saw this cuteness come across my pinterest feed the other day and decided it would make a fun Easter treat for my niece.

Early April Updates - Projects Completed & Things in Progress

The snow is finally melting - I have a yard again! Well, almost. The ground is still quite frozen, so my plans to start laying out the gardens are on hold.

the melting snow has revealed that I still have a lot of leaves to rake.
and I'm so close to being able to take the holiday lights of the little front shrub -
however, the extension cord is still buried under a 2-ft plow pile

I'm on spring break - we are lucky to have two weeks - and am staycationing this year. I have more enough to do around the house, and not enough money in the bank to travel anywhere beyond my parent's over the mountain or possibly a trip to Montpelier or Burlington. But the sun is out today, and the temps are supposed to get up into the 50s this week!

Crafted Exchange & Another Crafty Pay-it-forward

I love making/crafting things for other people, and as a crafty gift-giver, I also appreciate receiving crafted things from others. I bet Billy through some friends in town he was visiting earlier this winter and discovered he crochet's. I think we are kindred fiber-crafting spirits. Out at the bar one evening, he decided he really liked my argyle headband, and I decided I liked the bright pom-pomed hats that he's been making like crazy. So we decided on a craft exchange!

Little Lion Man - a Stuffed Friend

I meant to post this ages ago when I finished the project, but neglected to take a picture back then. I finally got a few pictures, so here it is!

Lions are kind of a "thing" for our family, so it was inevitable that I ended up knitting a little lion this past summer as a baby shower gift for the niece, who arrived this fall. She is pretty cool so far.

Summer Knitting Projects

I haven't done a ton of knitting this summer, but have been keeping busy with a few projects:

The string-of-lights is slowly growing. . . twenty-five lights are knit, five more are set up, and I have more than enough yarn to create more strand and lights. This will be done by Christmas for sure!

two yards and counting on the string of lights
(and a sneak-peak at the front porch and front yard)

One Fish Two Fish ~ a knitted blanket

I wrote this post earlier this summer when I completed this blanket, but wanted to wait to post it until the baby shower for my SIL a few weeks ago- I didn't want to ruin the surprise!

A number of years ago I stumbled upon a pattern (also found on ravelry as "A Recipe for Fish") for knitting fish that could be assembled into a blanket. The beauty of the pattern (as well as many others) is that you can really customize it based on what you use and how many fish you make. The more fish you knit, the bigger the blanket, and the larger the yarn and needles, the bigger the fish and blanket.

the growing school. sorry, gauge, they aren't real!

For my first go at it to test out the pattern, I used scrap yarn and orphans, and ended up with a very colorful little school. I think it's destined to become a cat blanket, if they'll have it (Gauge already approves, as you can see above). That finished piece is not very large, partly because I was trying to use up all the small bits, and partly because I lost steam as I was also working on other projects. And, who the heck wants to sew together a giant school of fish . . .

finished fish sampler. very colorful, not very large.

 

Creative & Crafted Pay-It-Forward

Around the beginning of the year, a facebook status started making the rounds. Offer to make something for five people who promise to do the same for others. A creative pay-it-forward, if you will. With the end of grad school and the resuming of "free time" in my future, I decided to bite.

want something?

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater

There is folklore amongst knitters regarding the Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater.

The basic premise is that if you knit a sweater for a boyfriend, the relationship will soon come to a demise . . . he might promptly, or soon thereafter, break-up with you. Something about your commitment to making a sweater scares off the typical commitment-phobic male.

Some may argue that the curse does not exist, or that the opposite is true in their case - that the sweater sealed the deal. Others justify the demise of the relationship for reasons other than a hand knit-with-love gift. The Google has all sorts of entertaining links regarding this phenomena, I think there are even several chick-lit novels out there.

'Tis the season: gingerbread men and 3-D paper stars

A little round up of some baking and crafting from this week/weekend.  Despite the 3 or four inches of fresh snow that fell overnight, I took this morning to finish up procuring and wrapping presents for the family.  Zoe makes an excellent backdrop, and her patience was rewarded with an hour or so hike on some trails across from the nearby elementary school.

wrapping paper courtesy of old seven days papers.
just another way to cut down on waste during the
holidays, doubling as a great fire starter!

Christmas Cards, 2012 edition

Another Sunday crafternoon.  It's snowing outside, "White Christmas" is on TV, and the holidays are just around the corner.

What to do with paint chip strips that have been laying around? Make Christmas cards, of course!

some paint strips

Make Something Monday: T-shirt produce bags

. . . and other updates.

A while ago, my sister and I had decided to establish a weekly crafting routine on Monday nights (my last class ends by 5, and I have the evening free from dorm-parenting duties). This weekly crafting idea comes from my friend Nicole from ME, who has been holding "Too Cute Tuesdays" off and on over the past several years. She started after she moved off the island, so I never got to be a part of them. She and her crew have made a lot of cool things over the years that I keep meaning to try my hand at (the Fabric To Go boxes I made last spring came from a craft she had posted about). Winter being winter (and colds, and lack of planning) has kept us from actually starting up. Last night (yes, Tuesday), however, we decided to get the show on the road.

old t-shirts, mostly from G

Last week I'd stumbled across a t-shirt repurposing project: turn old t-shirts into produce (or other) bags with a seam or two and some snips through the fabric to give it some extra stretch. One take on the project is here, another take is here. We mostly followed the former example.

Christmas Cards, 2011 edition

I haven't been all that crafty or creative as of late, in part due to the craziness that is the new job and grad school. Last years family-imposed hand/home-made gifts was a huge motivation for crafting - I think I need to impose that on myself again in the future, simply to make my self do something creative on a regular basis! I really enjoyed making Christmas cards last year and decided to give it a whirl again this year.

I had already decided to do something in a tree-theme with some green origami paper and several stamps I'd bought through Paper Source - this store is one of my favorite sources of stamps, papers, funky gifts, their catalog is full of beautiful and colorful pictures. Further inspiration came as I flipped through a recent Paper Source catalog.

some trees and
some papersource catalog pictures

Paper Elephants

Well, I found an excuse to be crafty this past weekend! My roommate's birthday was earlier this week and I decided I want to make her something.

She has an affinity for elephants (a tasteful affinity, of course), so I wanted to do something along those lines. Mostly because I've only lived with her for a few months, and I haven't got her totally figured out yet. Elephants come up enough in our random conversations that I decided it was appropriate to follow that theme.

If I'd had more time (maybe next year) I might knit her an elephant, or a hat with an elephant. But, being short on time I needed to come up with something else. Cue my bin of craftiness.

Rock the Socks

Now that spring is (mostly) here, I'm in a bit of a knitting funk. I can't settle on a project. Oh wait, I never can settle on a project. . . hence the random bags of partially complete sweaters or hats or creatures.

I think part of my spring indecisiveness is that most of my major projects are straight up wool, and wool isn't that fun to knit in the spring and summer. 

Winter Clay Class

I'm finally getting around to posting photos of my clay creations from the winter clay class my friend, S, the art teacher here on the island, put together for PIE.

Everyone had such creative and unique ideas. There were critters, sugar bowls, planting markers, fish, planters, buttons, water bowls for pets; some folks had crazy talent on the wheel, others could take a potato-like lump of clay into a bowl or wall hanging in no time. All very cool creations.


Glazing was equally cool; sometimes it was a guessing game as to how the colors would come out after firing. And there were some pretty sweet exploding glazes (see below!) that left little sparkly splashes of contrasting color over a light-colored base. The glazes also varied based on whether you started with the gray clay or the brown clay.

Homemade Christmas

The family decided at some point this past year to do homemade christmas, and keep it lowkey. Most of us followed the rules, and most of us waited until the last minute. Mom still hasn't completely finished a few things, but we got to see the assorted makings of said gifts.

Several of the things I made were requests or suggestions, and a few I had to come up with because the recipients were being most unhelpful ("I have no ideas. I just want to get rid of stuff"). I didn't wait until the last minute to get started, but I was definitely finishing at nearly the last mintute.

Without further ado, here are 2010's homemade christmas gifts.

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.