Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays

Happy New Year

Can't catch me

Doggit

Emilio and Alfred

Cliff and Bernard
Here's some Christmas crafting I spontaneously picked up one Saturday after being inspired by My Paper Crane's (scroll down). I named them alphabetically as I made them, and made them all different, mostly by changing the mouth. I think the gingerbread men make cute little gifts.

Materials: pencil, scissors for paper, scissors for cloth, tracing paper, pins, brown felt (I got the wooliest kind I could find, i.e., not 100% polyester), teeny rick-rack, white hand quilting thread, brown hand quilting thread (you could use embriodery thread, but I think the hand quilting thread is easier and sturdier), red pom poms, black marker, 12mm googly eyes, pink embroidery thread, hot glue gun, embroidery needles, polyester stuffing (polyfill).

Draw a gingerbread shape on tracing paper, cut out, pin to felt that's folded so you're cutting out two shapes at once, cut out felt.

On one piece of felt, use a needle and white hand quilting thread to tack on the rick-rack. Sew every three or four bumps. Sew on the pom poms. Next, plug in ye old hot glue gun. Decide placement of googly eyes, dot the fabric with a marker. Glue the eyes to desired location. Embroider mouth--I used undivided embroidery thread.

Ta-dah! A gingerbread personality!

Now pin together the front and back of the gingerbread man, leaving the face where you can see it--there's no turning in this pattern. Whip stitch around the edges of the arms and legs with brown hand quilting thread. Before sewing up the head, stuff the arms and legs with polyfill. I used a pencil to get the stuffing all the way in there. I didn't stuff them as much as possible, just enough to give them a third dimension.

Whip stitch most of the head, leaving a small gap for more polyfill. Add more stuffing to the body. Now finish up the whip stitching. You have a gingerbread man!

M-D washcloth

I really like this striped version of Sugar n' Cream yarn. Color: Country Stripes.

Link-a-dees

This weekend I found quirky free knitting patterns and an abundance of craft inspiration.

I'm in the mood to knit another stuffed toy, perhaps some knitty creatures? Woodkins or a turtle?

I also love Hilary Lang's gnome sewing pattern. My friend Candyce sent me the link to this cool embroidery store, and I'd like to make their free stuffed lamb pattern. Very sweet!

More blue and green

This is my fourth Kate, this time with Wool-ease on size 6 dpns. I really like this avacado color! If I may be an art nerd for a moment, I also think this color combination works well because there is a very dark color, light color, and medium color. The darkest color is next to the lightest color, bringing out the contrast. Let's look at a black and white picture:




Took Dodger on a long walk before lunch and threw my outerwear on the bed in the rush to fix lunch. Later I caught him enjoying the wooly warmth!

Doing math

I cast on the prescribed 87 stitches, but it felt all wrong knitting this hand towel. There was no eratta that corrected the number of stitches. I counted the stitches in the pattern repeat and figured the pattern repeat was 8 stitches long, with two 5-stitch borders. So the CO stitches should be a multiple of 8 plus 10, right? That would make the number of stitches 82 (72 + 10) or 90 (80 + 10), not 87! I cast on 90, put markers between the pattern repeats and it's been happy knitting ever since.

This is my first time using Knit Picks CotLin.

On Jennifer and Vanna's behalf

Even though it's all acrylic, I say this yarn is just fine.

And it comes in 23 colors! I would definitely make an afghan with this if I thought I would complete an afghan at this time.