Post Holiday Rush

I'm in only one rush....to get as many projects finished and started in one week as possible and loving every minute of it. The pre-holiday craziness is exactly that for a music teacher/musician. Evenings and weekends are tumultuous between concerts and rehearsals. The kids are more than excited at school which makes for exhausting days. Once Christmas Day is over I feel a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings as I gaze at my week long break and start reciting, "My Precious". I have made some very cool things in all the haze of December. And I will post these projects as they become finished projects.
Our Christmas tree this year was cut from our hill. This is our 5th Christmas in our new home and every year we have put up a tree that was found on the property. We love it's little imperfections, in fact it makes it perfect in our eyes.

The presents started going under the tree and I realized that I had insufficient wrapping materials this year. I am a huge blog follower and bookmarked a blog a little while ago that was about making homemade bows out of fabric. Well, it was fun and easy once I got the hang of it.

 Look at the cool fabric bows I made. I now have a use for the strips of fabric that I keep throwing in my fabric bin. I had only time to make a few of these, but I think I will make several and set them aside of future gift giving. 

A gift certificate for my mother presented me with a "how do I wrap this" challenge. It was simply a sheet of paper with information from the website that I gave her a gift certificate. In fact I had to cleverly make it look nice and print it out. I did not want to slip it into a regular business envelope so I used the same idea as the bow and made an over sized envelope out of fused fabric (like the bows). I used a yellow business envelope, gently took it apart and used it as a template. Voila! My mom loved the envelope and she is going to store things in it as it is useful and sturdy.  Perhaps old Christmas cards or pictures or it can be re-gifted for someone else.

 Well off to the races. I have mittens and quilting and sewing projects, "my precious"!

Carve out some time and the turkey.

Have you ever had someone professionally carve your Thanksgiving turkey? Well it happened this thanksgiving at our house. My sister's boyfriend offered to carve the beautifully roasted turkey and after we agreed he immediately left the house to his car and when he returned he was armed with his professional carving knives. The real deal.

Well, in the time that it took for me to make the gravy...say 15 minutes.... the turkey was completely carved and carefully laid out on the platter like none I have ever seen before. Not a speck of meat left on the bones and better yet, no post turkey clean up. It was awesome! (and the leftovers are wonderful.)

Haven't tired of using my yarn stash for dreaming up hats. Even with busy Thanksgiving preparations I was able to carve out the time to make a couple more. I'm not a Black Friday person at all. I stay home and stay mellow and ignore all the nonsense. I'm not completely innocent, however.  I did check out online quilt and yarn shops.

 Lisa's Hat by Green Mountain Spinnery. Pattern purchased on Patternfish. Made from Organik (ecru)yarn and Elann Peruvian Highland (green).

Trifurcate Hat by Hunter Hammerson. Also purchased from Patternfish. Made from the leftover yarn from The Quince and Co. Solstice cardigan.

Hats off to Autumn

 I made it little wall hanging for the season. I may eventually give this as a gift, but for now I'll let it decorate my wall for the next week or so.
It has squares and rectangles displaying many  autumnal elements. I'm not a huge Debbie Mumm fan, but these are fun & relatively quick to make. You have to be a fusible web fan. I made a winter one of these kind of patterns last year. They do make fun and unique gifts. The directions are crystal clear in the book. For a link to the book, here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/Seasonal-Samplers-Autumn-Winter-Trimmings/dp/B000JHO0AA

I'm in a hat craze. I like wearing hats. I am up to my neck in scrap yarn so I am on a quest to make as many hats as I can for the time being. This urge may wear out after my very next hat, which I've already started, but it's what feels right, right about now.
This hat pattern is from the new issue of Love Of Knitting, Holiday 2011. Picked it up at a newstand. I was pleasantly surprised at the nice patterns in it. I am an Interweave Knits magazine girl, but I can't resist the Holiday issues of some of the other knitting and quilting publications. This is call the Double Diamond Hat and Scarf. It's shown being worn by a handsome young gentleman, but I think I'm keeping this hat for myself.

This was made out of leftover yarn..a Brunswick Worsted weight that I'm sure has been out of circulation for a long time. A barn red color.
Well...off to knitting more hats.

Encore performance & UFO completed

The first one was so fun, I decided to make another Cardi-vest for Claire. Made using Paton's Shetland Chunky yarn in Tangerine. Hope there is an "orange" day at her Kindergarten! This sweater has "October" written all over it. This is such a wonderful pattern. I could make dozens of these. An easy weekend project.

 Husband's sweater is done. It was posted as a beginning project last year. A beautiful sweater and he looks great in it. This project took time, but it wasn't an unpleasant or burdensome job....just a lot of stitches!






Finally, had a distress message from the grandaughter the other day. She was traumatized to find out that she had a loose tooth. A harsh reality for one who has never gone through it before. Well, I immediately set out to make a Tooth Fairy Pillow. It will conveniently hang on her door handle or the bed headboard. Used a embroidery download and designed my own little pattern. The grandaughter called last night to tell me how much she loves it. For her, It took the sting out of the idea and her phone call made my evening.

New cardigan in time for fall....just in time!

My new cardigan. I knit this sweater in 1 month, thanks to some long plane flights and some rainy August days thanks to a couple of East Coast hurricanes. Great sweater and great yarn. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury tweed and the pattern is Pure and Simple V-Neck Cardigan. Knitted from the top down.....fitting is a breeze. http://knittingpureandsimple.com/

It's a good thing I finished it....it's only in the 50's today. Perfect sweater weather!

Summer memories

 Well, the summer is coming to an end. A great summer. Took a trip to Maine to see our children and granddaughter and two weeks ago my husband and I took a vacation to the west coast to visit San Francisco and the wine country. I could write an entire blog on just that! We did visit the Napa region and some of the Sonoma country and we do know it is going to be a place we will revisit again, no doubt!  We stayed at some great places and we acquired some great wine. Upon suggestion of our B & B host, we brought our treasured wine home as checked luggage on the plane. It is safer and faster. She suggested this very cool wine carrier especially designed for the job.

It got our wine home safe and sound from California to Central New York State. When filled with wine it weighed 43 lbs. so it stayed under the 50 lb. weight limit. The beauty is that it has rollers on the bottom and it folds down flat so we can bring it out with us back to the wine country. The unit is called Wine Check.  It cost us $54.00, but it would have cost more to mail it and certainly it might have been exposed to more treacherous conditions to the wine. It was the first thing off the plane and at the baggage pick-up! 

After getting back from California it was back to work. Thinking of school and balancing my fun in my sewing room.  Made a grocery bag from some upholstery type material. Added an embroidery to the front pocket that reflected my kitchen task this week. I made and canned homemade salsa from the abundance of tomatoes this year. I'm bringing the bag to the store today as I am out of tortilla chips! And I'll take some wine with that.

Knitting Pure and Simple - Child's Cardi Vest

Finished the cardi vest. Very fast and cute and easy pattern. Made for my granddaughter who is modeling it with her new Kindergarten wardrobe. She loves it! The cotton yarn I used is very heavy and takes forever to dry. I will use a more practical yarn next time with some acrylic or fiber of that sort to make it more wearable and washable. This yarn has some heft to it. It would be more useful as a nice baby blanket. It is also hard to knit. Soft though.....























  I am starting a cardigan for myself made our of Debbie Bliss Luxury Tweed. Expensive yarn! Hard to find a good buy on it, but when I bought one skein of it to swatch and sample as a possible contender for this sweater, I was sold! Soooo lovely. Perfect cardigan sweater weight and color.

http://www.knittingpureandsimple.com/

I am beginning this sweater now and it is going to go with me on my trip to San Francisco and the California wine country next week. These top down sweaters are great for travel as you knit in one piece. No seams!