Quilted Playmat

In the recent issue of Living Crafts magazine, they have patterns for five new knitted farmyards. Knitted farmyards, I thought? A knitted farmyard, I discovered, is a playmat that is made by creating and piecing squares of a variety of styles to create one whole "farm." Each square is a different part of the farm, like a sheep pasture, or vegetable garden, wheat field, or pond. Back in Living Crafts inagural issue of Winter 2008, they had this article about collaborating with a group to create knitted farmyard playmats.


Because I have no green yarn in my stash, which would be necessary for fields, I decided instead to make a quilted farmyard. Using different prints for the various fields, I'm sewing the patches together to make a Cotswold sheep farm. The fields are bordered by golden stone fences, typical of Cotswold limestone. My plan is to embroider the fields with flowers, crops, and vegetables, and somehow embroider the stone walls to look like stones. Then, when I put in the batting and backing, I'm going to quilt crop rows and waves of water onto the fields and ponds, respectively. Some knitted or wooden animals and simple wooden farm equipment which I hope to purchase should complete Baby's first Christmas present in a little under a year from now!

Fini!

I decided to add some flowers to the ends of the green tendrils, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Overall, a very enjoyable first crewel experience; I was anxious to do more.

So I did. Just a little sweet bud on some fingerless gloves destined to be a Christmas present.


Now, I must make other things worthy of embellishment.

Booklet Ornaments

We had a fantastic weekend with family and friends and were given a baby shower with lots of handmade lovelies and everything we might need (more later)! Last week, before we left town, I finished this little trio of Christmas ornaments. They are slightly larger than the brooches, at 2 1/2 x 3 inches. They have mulit-colored and printed paper on the inside for you to add your own Christmas memories by writing, collage, drawing, etc. These are for an ornament swap, but contact me through my shop if you'd like some for your own home!

Dusty Vintage

This could refer to my house at the moment, but instead it's the name I chose for the latest handbag. My SIL's birthday is coming up and I wanted to craft her something special. Since I'm trying to use mostly materials that I have in my stash, I came up with this repurposed felted purse. My first knitted sweater ever, when I was about 14, was a really pretty teal blue/green color; the color was great, the design and my execution were not. So I felted the sweater, made up a pattern, and cut my pieces out of the thick resulting wool.



The embellishments are made from bits of scrap yarn and buttons, and I just happened to have a leather purse handle and magnetic closure left over from another project. The only new material I used was the fabric lining. I hope she likes it!

On another handcrafted gifting kind of note, I found this interesting website, Buynothingchristmas, put together by Canadian Mennonites to refocus the meaning of Christmas. Kind of interesting, and it has lots of good ideas on saving money with handcrafted gifts.

Mini Book Ornaments

These (not the best picture) are some miniature book ornaments all packaged up for a swap I'm in. As you can see from my Etsy shop, books are my thing, so I thought it only appropriate to make some minis and turn them into ornaments. They are kind of like my Booklet Brooches, but larger, with blank inside pages. I am hoping that people will get creative and write Christmas memories, draw pictures, add small photographs, or collage in the pages to make them personal tp their family. At least that's what I would have wanted to do with such an ornament as a child! Maybe, if I really get motivated there will be some for sale in the shop soon.

Handmade Christmas

Almost every year for Christmas my brother receives a well-intentioned, but unfinished, knitted present from me. Two years ago it was a half-knit scarf; last year, I gave him a store-bought sleek Banana Republic scarf to make up for it. So this year, good intentions aside, I HAD to finish a project that I started for him; and not just finish, but in time for Christmas. To make up for previous years, it had to be something big and substantial, and since he would probably rather die than wear a hand-knit sweater, I decided on an afghan. My first ever. With cables. And eyelets. And lots of pattern repeats.

This does have a happy ending though, because I finished the afghan on Saturday with two yards of yarn left! I am so happy. And hopefully he will be too with a real finished present on Christmas Day.

And since he doesn't even know about my blog, I can disclose what gives me so much satisfaction about this project: it only cost $15! I consider that a triumph! The pattern was a free leaflet at Joann's, and each of the five balls of yarn cost only $3. It's value has been very much increased though with the love and prayers I've knit into it for him.

This reminds me of a wonderful blog I came across last night: Taste the Goode Life. Evidently this lady had a cooking show on the BBC for many years which was very popular. Now she writes this blog everyday, and has so many good ideas for frugal cooking and a frugal Christmas. I'm excited to be more financially mindful this Christmas, because I know it will (it already has; witness the $15 afghan) increase my enjoyment of the season as I savor what it really important. Check out her blog for yourself. She is quite an entertaining writer.

I was spoiled...

These are the beautiful gifts I received from The Great Knitted Purse Swap, my first swap, on Ravelry. Look at the gorgeous color and design of this purse knit by carolannb! And she so sweetly packaged everything and filled my bag with all kinds of goodies, including something for January Baby. You spoiled me, carolannb!

Christmas Progress

Saturday I finished these, the last three of my four remaining Christmas present projects. They are leather bound picture albums, with decorative paper accenting the covers and endpapers.

Every year we go back and forth on how to handle Christmas presents in the family: there are no grandchildren yet (the first, ours, is due in January), so we haven't been able to use the no presents for adults rule yet. For ourselves, we are trying to keep gifts to a miminum and be very intentional and thoughtful about what we give. This year, I'm hand-making all the gifts except one, and to me, that makes a gift very special. I hope our family recipients agree!

How do you handle gifts between the adults in your family?

Don't forget to sign up for my giveaway a couple posts below!

It Really is the Best

The best granola that is. I was pretty skeptical at first, but after eating it for breakfast, mid-morning snack, mid-afternoon snack, and before-bedtime snack, I'm convinced. The recipe is Andy's Fairfield Granola, from the "Feast" cookbook by Nigella Lawson. DH loves it too, and diminishes my supply rapidly by large handfuls. Today's batch is really for him, because he's been working so hard; we may go through the whole supply in front of the tube watching the Olympics!
The granola, as one of my new favorites, is destined for Christmas presents this year. Now, I just need to start collecting some pretty little containers to wrap it in.

Really, do try it, it will become a habit.

I'm taking a little break from bookbinding while I finish up this quarter's Masters classes, so I'm enjoying some extra cooking and knitting in my breaks. What I should really be enjoying is some extra cleaning...oh well!

A new skirt...and a new gifting philosophy

This is my newest summer skirt, finally finished after as DH said, "almost a year." Well, not quite, more like 8 months, only 2/3 of a year; so there! It is the Sasha pattern by Louet knit with Claudia Hand Painted Yarns Linen and I love how it turned out. But now I'm too pregnant to wear it. So I've just been admiring it on the hanger. I thought about making the elastic band in the waist a little larger to fit under my belly, so I might play around with that. Right now I'm just content to gaze at it.

As I was wrapping my friend's wedding presents in homemade fabric gift bags, I was pondering my plans for Christmas presents this year. I'm giving all handmade items (mostly handmade by me; yes I'll be busy:), and I'm going to wrap them using items I already have on hand. The fabric gift bags are a great way to use up leftover fabric, and, since I save all the wrappings people give me, I have quite a stash. Yet another way to recycle, be good to the environment, and get more stuff out of my house!