Knitty Gritty Thoughts

Starting to go crazy :: Holiday Style

It's official -- I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind.

I was so proud of myself this year - I had finished all of my Christmas shopping early, before Thanksgiving and was feeling so proud of myself.  Nevermind I forgot I was planning on doing a mostly hand-made Christmas and most of those hand-mades haven't even been started!

So of course, I had to start something new -
a little handspun hat for me using the Madtosh Slouch Pattern. 
Such a fun knit!
Hanging out with is my favorite bag of all time. 
A gorgeous Freda leather bag hand-crafted by my friend Joanna
and purchased from her awesome etsy shop. 
Get thee over there to drool at all the amazing designs! :)

I feel like the list keeps going on and on.  I'd love to -

Make a stocking for Abby's 1st Christmas - (plans are in mind for colorwork/reindeer design using some more Shelter yarn I purchased.  Something like her dad's stocking but rework the gauge for the yarn and make it bigger.  Too much thought process involved, argh!)

Knit Advent Calendar - (this one is a biggie.  I have 5 stockings done.  If I can just do 1 stocking a day I can make it.  Nevermind I barely have 1 hour a day to knit.  Let alone sew.)

Knit a hat for Hubby - (I knit him a hat every year.  Here's one of the previous year's version.  Now if I can just sit down and do it!  He has a big head!)

Make a bender for Hubby's stocking - (He's been bugging me for years about this bender doll.  I have no idea how to amigurumi or even how to spell it but I need to figure it out prior to Dec 24th!)

Make a toy ball for Abby - (I saw these super cute balls on etsy and found the tutorial here.  I can't wait to make a minkee material ball for her.  She loves watching me toss things in the air.)

Sew zip pouches for Mom and Grandma - (I got a start on these here.  Now to finish.)

Figure out handmade goodies to put in advent calendar - (Any ideas??)

Re-do the lining of Hubby's stocking so it's more stretchy - (Right now it won't fit anything!)

Sew all the wrapping paper using my leftover fabric and using the Japanese art of Furoshiki(!)  - Wrapping gifts with fabric.  You can get the idea of what it is over here.  And here's a neat link to the Japanese Ministries image of How-To's)

I'd also like to make potholders.  Oh yea and make some more fabric balls. 

Make heat pads filled with flax seed for Hubby's Dad

Knit a handspun hat for MIL.

I'm enjoying my new super fabulous fabric weights from this etsy shop. 
Ruth is super talented!

And the list goes on and on!  I'm crazy, I will never get this all done.  And in the meantime, I really need to sew Abby some more diapers and make a few bibs - she's 6 months so we're starting on solids!

Holiday Fabric Ball Pattern

All the elves are in the workshop today working on the holiday gifts.  If you were looking for some gifts or ideas for decorations for your own home I wanted to point you to my fabric ball tutorial I posted this time last year.

Happy Crafting!

Brrr! Baby it's cold outside!

**Thanks for all the great giveaway entries! My computer crashed over the weekend so I've been offline for 4 days trying to rebuild (good thing I had a backup - thank YOU time machine) but it will take a little while to get organized and randomly pick winners. I'll be emailing ya if you're a winner at the end of this week** =)

Brrr! It's cold out there today! I'm freezing to death over here and I'm trying to keep warm by keeping my fingers busy. I've been busy knitting away on my advent calendar project. My custom advent tags from Polka Stripe Studios just arrived. So darling! They fit just perfectly!

I've been sewing up a storm to the tune of a few gathered clutches for christmas gifts. This is a really cute project - I had skipped over it when it first came out because it look too complicated to me. Turns out, it's easy! The steps are very basic and it takes you through the process step by step to make a totally amazing clutch.

And, I finally finished my Christmas hanging redwork! This is very exciting - I've been in progress on this for over 2 years so it's a great feeling to know it will be hanging from my wall soon to enjoy during the Christmas season. Next step is to figured out the borders and backing and get it put together!

Happy Tuesday!

Freebie Friday :: Giveaway

Hi All-

Thought I would hold a mini freebie friday giveaway today.  All the items in the pictures below are up for grabs.  I'll ship them anywhere in the world - free shipping to you.  All you need to do is leave a comment saying what you'd like and I'll pick a name randomly from that group on each item after the giveaway closes (tuesday afternoon, AZ Time)

It's totally free to you!  Feel free to pick more than one, or say you'd be interested in them all.  I'd like to pass on these items to a good home!

So here we go - sewing patterns!

Up for grabs from left -

Amy Butler Midwest Modern Pillows

Amy Butler Betty Shopper

Montessori by Hand Mischievous Gnome Messenger Bag

Singer Apron Pattern

Sugar Rush by Chickpee Quilts

All patterns are brand new, unopened and have no pieces missing or cut out.

 

Brand-new Bobbin Side Winder, auto winding bobbins for sewing.  Great to have next to you as you sew so you don't need to keep re-threading your machine every time you need to wind more bobbins. 

Knits and Grits DPN organizer/Crochet hook organizer up for grabs

Scott Mountain Crafts Hand crafted silver shawl stick up for grabs -hammered silver, very pretty!

** See anything you like?  Leave a comment saying what you are interested in(there's no limit to the number of things) and I'll pick a winner for each item randomly from the group and ship it to you free.**

Happy freebie friday! :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here...

I'm totally smitten (with a mitten!) - a new advent calendar pattern by Emily.  You can download the free (!) pattern off the knitpicks website.  I'm using that brand new yummy shelter yarn by BT I was telling you about.    I'm super happy with the way it's turned out, I'm using 4 colors, natural cream, grey (sweatshirt), red and green.  There will be 6 mittens in each color for a total of 24. 

It's sunny in AZ today!

I've also had some pretty redwork in my lap, trying to finally finish it in time for the holidays. 

Here's a peek - it's a cute design with some kids making a snowman amongst the trees.   Very old fashioned styling.  I'm picturing some sort of fabric framing with small squares immediately around it and then a larger rectangle all the way around.  I haven't decided if I want to quilt the border or leave it plain or???  Any advice would be welcomed! :)

Happy Wednesday!

 

Putting on the 'knits :: Gift Style

I'm so lucky to be surrounded by lots of friends and family who love to knit and crochet. We just had a monster box of knits arrive from A's Knitting Aunt. I staged a mini photo shoot to send some photos to her along with a thank you note and I thought you'd enjoy some out-takes here.

I had to search for this pattern set on ravelry. You can find the pattern details here. So cute!

It even came with a second option for a hat...

Look Ma! No Hands!

A gorgeous (!) blanket, sweater and bonnet set

Abby loved this gorgeous hand-crocheted dress - she loved the flounciness and kicking all around! It's a little big but plenty of room to grow into. So cute!

Does anyone know where the rest of the patterns are from? I've been trying to find them online.

Happy Monday!

Handspun Knits :: Wristlets

Remember that yummy skein of handspun cashmere I showed you? 

I finally finished the knitted wristlets I'd been planning using this free pattern.  The pattern was super simple and easy to make.  The construction is very easy, it's knit flat and then seamed.  I only had enough yarn to knit 4 repeats but they are the perfect size and super luxurious.

Another knit down and tossed into my christmas gift pile!

Getting Crafty :: Making your own clock

Cleaning out my craft room the past few weeks I've come across quite a few old craft materials.  Most of them go straight into my donation bin but in the bottom of a box I found two old, empty wooden embroidery hoops and I was struck with inspiration to create a pretty handmade clock for my craftroom.

I'm pretty proud of this creation and couldn't wait to share it with you.

It was fairly easy to create, 2,  9 inch embroidery hoops, 1 fat quarter of fabric (from the lovely cicada studios that I've been saving for over 2 years), heavy weight iron on interfacing, timtex for a heavy duty backing, glue gun, wood glue and the best part, a clock making kit!

The steps were fairly straightforward - iron interfacing to fabric, attach fabric to first hoop, glue second hoop to the back (to create a extra deep pocket for the clock mechanism), put in timtex in back.  Punch a small hole and put clock mechanism in.  Attach numbers to fabric and voila!  your own crafty fabric clock. 

 Easy peasy!  Now I always know what time it is in my craft room and I get to stare at one of my favorite pieces of fabric all day!  Perfect project for a small bit of prized fabric!

Cloth Napkins - Hand made style

One the things I do to challenge myself daily is to use less disposable items and more reusable ones.  I like to play a game, taking one disposable item and then finding a reusable, more earth sustainable one.

In this case, napkins!  I actually had been using old kitchen towels for napkins but they were well, old, and kind of icky looking no matter how clean they were.  A nice new option was in order.

I wish I could say these simple napkins were easy.  They just about drove my out of my mind.  I'm thrilled to be done with them, but they don't make me happy yet when I see them.  It was too traumatizing.  :) Hopefully with time.

It all started when I saw this gorgeous pattern on the purl bee.  Yes please!

The rickrack size wasn't stated, and being a cheapskate I needed to find a less expensive option.  So, I guessed and picked mini.  I guessed wrong (but wouldn't figure this out til later).

The mini rick rack on the tiny edge drove me nuts.

I threw the whole project in a drawer.  Then, I found this uber cute tutorial to make essentially the same thing, but had a super smart way to sew on the rick rack.  Yea!

The rick rack was too small.  It was a living nightmare to sew it to the edge.  I persevered anyway.

 

I went to sew the top on and to turn it.  The rick rack was too small and didn't hardly show.  All that hard work down the drain. :(

I threw the project in a drawer (notice a trend?)

I pulled it out and sewed inside the rick rack, effectively hiding the offensive rickrack and making a plain napkin.

Joy reigns!

So here you go - gorgeous napkins that I made entirely too complicated and should have been simple but were not.  I will make more, just not anytime soon :)

To console myself, I had to make a little yarny purchase.  I couldn't resist that gorgeous new shelter yarn from brooklyn tweed.  Now this, this will be simple, and make me very happy.  :)