For my girlies for Valentine's Day--a little sack o'goodies from my favorite little goodie store, Au Marche.
The sacks were knitted by moi, with a pattern from One More Skein: 30 Quick Projects to Knit
The insides are filled with, oh, all sorts of smelly and tasty things--a bit of chocolate and candy, a square of lavender, some pretty smelling soap, some yummy lip gloss....all tied up with a spare bit of ribbon and love!
I don't often blog about my baby brother. He's right smack-dab between Sweet Sister and I in age (seven years younger than me, ten years older than her), and actually sort of the typical middle odd-child-out, despite the big age gaps between all of us. Sweet Sister and I are both very artsy--although each in different ways--while Baby Brother is much more athletic.
Like brothers and sisters sometimes do, we could be very mean to each other growing-up. I gave him three black eyes by the time he was in kindergarten (in my defense, two were accidental and the third time he told me to hit him). He once pulled me across the kitchen floor by my hair (my scalp still hurts when I remember it).
We weren't always such violent little thugs, of course--I still have the book that I read to him before bed every night for six months once, complete with voices and sound effects. But suffice to say, although I always loved him--and would have defended him to the death to any one outside the family, and vise-versa--it took us both getting a bit older before we really grew to like each other.
But, now that we're all grown-up, I must admit that it's very nice to have a brother. He tends to just show-up in Lawrence at the most fun times, always with some story of adventure to tell. He taught me how to play beer pong. He introduced me to Dave Mathews, and always burns me a copy of his new CDs. He's fearless when lighting fireworks. He helps move my furniture....and he's really become a guy that I'm pretty proud of.
And since I have such a nice brother, and today is his birthday, I decided that he needed something Meryl-made. And since there are only so many knitted things a college-aged boy will wear, I thought, perhaps, a simple hat was in order.
The pattern is Stephanie Nicole's "A Hat Fit For a Boyfriend" and it's knitted in alpaca. (Full details.) I was a little worried that it looked floppy as I was knitting it, but was actually very pleased once I had Sweet Husband try it on for photographing.
Happy Birthday Baby Brother!
For the past month or so, every tiny shaft of sunlight has felt like a blessing. From a little before Christmas to almost the very end of January we had almost solid grey cloud cover.
I'd gotten so used to it, in fact, that the first day the sun really came out, I stared out my window at work for an hour trying to figure out why it looked so "weird" outside. It was only when a co-worker popped in and said, "Hey, did you notice the sun is out?" that I finally realized the difference!
Perhaps because of the dreariness though, I keep finding myself curling up with bright things inside.
Exhibit A:
I found this lady last week at our local flea market (delightfully on sale at half-price!). It's a windmill pattern, and it's just perfectly worn in all the right places. It might become a picnic blanket this summer, but for now it's the perfect size for couch snuggling.
Exhibit B:
A big basket of Noro Matsuri. This is the first time I've ever splurged on Noro, and I'm so happy I did. I think I'm going to use it to make a bright, sunny little blanket.
Exhibit C:
A Destroyed Cowl made in lemony shade of Cascade 220. I knitted most of this while playing games with family at Christmas time. It looks a little complicated, but actually it's just straight knitting. Then when you get to the last row, you unravel a few stitches on each end, which made it more interesting in a "what's going to happen?" kind of way. The only tricksey part is the kitchener stitch join at the end. Mine didn't end up completely seamless as it was supposed to be. I'm also not completely happy with the way it lays (listen to me whine about it), but doubled up around my neck it is at least very warm.
A little more book-putting-together, if you don't mind....
I have a big file folder of scrap paper that was getting a little full, so I decided it was time to put it to use. With my trusty eyelet setter
Best thing? It really is never-ending. Because, as each little booklet gets used up, I can take it off the rings and throw it away. And as I collect new little scraps of paper I can add them to the back. Very nifty!
Last weekend, Sweet Husband was going through his sketchbook, throwing away half doodled on pieces of paper. He uses the nice stuff, and I hated to see it go to waste, so I rescued it and made something pretty.
I also pulled out these bottles of food coloring that I had leftover from egg-dying a few years back.
Then, I filled an old bake sheet with water and plopped in a few drops of the food coloring. I found it worked better if I added just one or two colors rather than all of them at once.
Then, in went the paper. After a gentle sloosh, I pulled it out and tucked it into a catalog (raid your junk mail) to soak up as much excess water as possible. Eventually--maybe every three dips or so--the water started to turn all one color. When that happened, I just dumped it in the sink and started over again.
Once I was done will all the paper, I stacked it all up and added more dye in strategic places with a bit of rag. If you stack the papers on top of each other as you do this, some of the dye bleeds through, which I found was a nice effect.
After carefully peeling the paper apart (it's delicate when it's wet) and letting the sheets dry, I folded them in half and bound them into a little book. There are millions of "how to's" for this on the internet (here and here are two easy ones), but I'm lazy so I just used my little eyelet setting tool to make four mini-books, then strung them together with a bit of lace trim--very 1980's, don't you think?
Tada! All kinds of ready for my to-do lists brilliant thoughts!
Two pairs o'booties and a scarf!
The scarf is actually one I crocheted a long time ago, but it's kind of short so it needed a little button to keep it all tucked around the neck, nice and toasty-like. I added one and--tada!--a little present for Nice Co-Worker who loves scarves.
The booties are both stash-busters.
On bottom, a pair of "Magic Slippers" made from leftover sock yarn--lovely, adorable, quick.
On top, the now-famous "French Press Slippers" made from Lamb's Pride Bulky.
I feel a little bad saying this--because it seems everyone in the world is in love with the French Press Slippers right now--but I'm kind of...ehh. It could be that I just haven't hit my stride with the felting thing (to make these slippers you knit them really big, then put them in the washer and essentially shrink them to the right size), but mine ended up kind of lumpy and goofy-lookin'. Then again, maybe it's the buttons? I'm not sure--something just isn't quite right....
Of course, that hasn't stopped me from wearing them constantly--including out in public to knitting club last week--it's been, like, highs of six degrees here and those suckers are warm!
There's no point in pretending I'm all cool-and-above-the-frenzy--I'm a big fan of the Twilight series.
But I'm not even close to as big of a fan as Sweet Sister is. Hence, when I found a whole section of Twilight inspired knitting patterns on Ravelry, I knew I had found her Christmas present.
I chose Bella's La Push Hat and Bella's Mittens, both done in Cadena from KnitPicks (which is becoming one of my favorite yarn sources these days). The result?
Most importantly, one very happy sister! I truly think this is the best reception a knitted gift of mine has ever gotten. (It's always a fear--you can't take them back, ya know?) Additionally though, I think both patterns are absolutely fabulous. I may have to make another pair of the mittens for myself!
Just a bit before Christmas, I took a rigid heddle loom weaving class. This was the result:
I'm trying to cut myself off on the hobbies. As one good friend says, I have a bit of ADD when it comes to the making stuff. I dabble in a little bit of everything--which I love--but, at the same time the expression, "An inch deep and a mile wide" comes to mind....
And rationally, I know that, right? But looms are so pretty....
Although he does not know it yet, Nice Dad got me an awesome Christmas present:
And I spent the day putting it to good use!
Without further adieu, my entire stash:
Seeing it laid out like this in all its glory makes me pretty ridiculously happy....it also makes me think I don't get to set foot in the yarn store for a bit.
Although I believe more will be trickling in still, these are the ornaments I've gotten so far in Freshly Blended's Ornament Swap. It was a lot of fun this year because I got to see, not only the ornaments I received, but all of Nice Mom and Nice Mom-In-Law's ornaments too.
I've only done this for two years now, but it's become absolutely one of my favorite holiday traditions. Everyone is so creative and the ornaments are always beautiful! To see more of them and be completely inspired, check out the flickr pool of all of this year's ornaments.
The idea for this project came from Just a Girl. It's supposed to be--and her's ended up as--a wreath.
Mine? Not so much...although it is kind of an attractive "ball of balls", so to speak.
It really should be an easy little project--take ornaments, string them on wire = wreath.
I believe my mistakes were three:
Nonetheless, I still think it ended up very passable.
If you'd asked me a few years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed I'd be the type of person to whip up my own table runners and pillow covers. But I wanted some Christmas-y stuff and didn't want to spend a lot of cash on something that will spend most of the year in a box, so I decided to give it a go.
My table runner, while it ended up OK, could use a little work still. (It's a very long seam to keep straight and even.)
However, I will probably never buy another pillow cover again. Literally, it's one of the easiest bits of sewing ever to come out of my machine. Like, if you've ever made a pillow, it's even easier than that. I used these directions, and it only took me about twenty minutes to make two. At that rate, my little throw pillows are likely to get new covers every month!
What does one hang in one's bathroom for Christmas? Particularly when one's bathroom is a tiny, humid, little room where anything fabric-y would look perpetually damp or (ugg!) grow things?
Why, stick stars, of course!
Also great for last minute decorating--all you need are sticks and string!
I saw these on etsy last month and thought they'd be just the thing for the little acorn toppers I've had sitting in my windowsill since Halloween. I made mine (two words: hot glue), but you can buy them very affordably from pinkbeeb0's shop. (Go look at the pictures if nothing else, they're beautiful.)
I think they'd be pretty as present "toppers" too...not in my house, but, you know, in places where the dogs believe in not eating Christmas.
For the past several years, I have tried to avoid buying wrapping paper at Christmas time. I think it started as a way to assuage my eco-guilt for sending out about a million Christmas cards, but more recently it's become more of a for-fun challenge--how to make pretty packages while generating the least amount of waste possible.
I've done brown paper sacks (recycled from the grocery store and made pretty with yarn, kinda like this), I've done furoshiki (that's wrapping packages in fabric), I've used various other bits of paper we already had around the house....
This year I decided to try newspaper.
We don't take the paper--read it online instead--but every week we get this unwanted, classified-filled, circular-type thing delivered to our house. It makes me a little crazy actually, because a) the point in not subscribing to the paper is that we don't want to make the waste, and b) inevitably we forget to bring the stupid thing inside, and before we know it there's a pile of icky wet newspapers littering up the porch. But for the holidays, at least, I've made good use of it.
A little baker's twine or ribbon or yarn. A wee paper tag--voila!--nearly free, mostly-recycled holiday wrappings!
Issue #1: I love advent calendars. I love counting down the days to anything really, be it Christmas, my birthday, the latest Harry Potter book or movie....But even so, there is nothing appealing to me about pulling an old piece of nasty milk chocolate out of a cardboard box. In fact, having chocolate out and about anywhere in our house is just a very bad idea in general. Upshot? The traditionally little advent calendars sold at the stores just don't work for me.
Issue #2: Sweet Husband, as many of you know, is a jeweler. And since people like to buy jewelry for holiday presents--and, don't get me wrong, we like it when they do--his December is sometimes more "crazy-insane-busy" than "merry".
Solution: A "moving advent calendar" for Sweet Husband!
First, I made up a nice little stockpile of treats. Some were freebies (a note, a book of "jeweler jokes") and some were cheapies (a teeny little moleskin to put in his wallet, some of his favorite jelly beans).
Then I downloaded these pretty stickers.
Put sticker on object, put object in place where Sweet Husband will find it, rinse, repeat. And rather than putting them in the same place each day, to make it more of a surprise, I decided to put each little treat somewhere different. (Hence, the "moving" part.)
Does anyone else have a favorite kind of advent calendar or other way of counting down the days 'till Christmas?
I know. It's a wonder I have any walls left to hang things from, yes?
But this was too sweet to pass up. (Inspiration here!) And yes, I cut up a book to make this, but only part of one. It'd be really lovely to use a nice Christmas book, but I couldn't bear to chop up my Charles Dickens.
These fully deserve scratch and sniff internet, but since the technology isn't there yet, you'll have to just have a go at making your own. Instructions here. The cloves are sharp enough that I recommend finger protection, but, trust me, the delicious smell every time you walk into the room is worth the sore thumb!
Yes, yes, it's another garland. I tell you, I'm obsessed with them this year! But ohhh my little snowflakes are making me so happy!
I actually bought these crocheted snowflakes from mily75. Then I bought two pieces of different lace trim from the fabric store and just tied the snowflakes to the lace with some thin ribbon. I hung them in our bedroom window so I can wake up to "snow" every morning.
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