2017 Crafty Christmas Goodness

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  I was privileged to have time off from the 22nd to the 1st, so was able to spend a long week with my family in NM.  It was lots of fun, relaxing and busy at the same time.  We took lots of hikes with the dogs, lots of sewing and crafting, and lots of time playing games (yay bridge) and other fun stuff with the kids.

As usual, I made ornaments for some of my family this year.  A few different ones, a Twitter one for Mike, and some other prairie point ornaments.  I got a bit tired of the prairie point ones, so got out some of this leather (or faux suede) fringe.  It was something I inherited rolls and rolls of from Georgia (thanks Georgia!!) and I thought it was really pretty wrapped around the balls.  I completed them with velvet or satin bows for a softer calmer tree ornament.

In the interest of not buying additional wrapping materials, I wrapped the ornaments in boxes I made out of cardstock.

On the crafty present front, I crocheted a bunch of dishcloths for family members.  There were about half a dozen but they were all mostly the same.  All dishcloths from my house will be made out of this brown/orange/white yarn for the foreseeable future because my sister gave me a giant cone of it and I refuse to buy any more until I've used it up.  It turns a fairly even shade of all-over orange after the first time you wipe a counter with bleach spray on it, but they're so nice and sturdy and scrubby.

I was quite lucky to receive two fabulous knitted presents this year myself.  One was this super fun rainbow seed stitch headband from my friend Jamie.  It's super warm and toasty and I've been wearing it every morning on my walks.  I didn't have a headband and had been thinking about making one,  it's usually cold enough that I want something to cover my ears, but I hate having a sweaty head so this was perfect.

My good friend Kristin sent me this gorgeous knit hat.  Her colorwork is exquisite; I've never owned a knitted thing as nice as this.  Importantly, it also is long enough to cover my ears, and isn't itchy, so I've been wearing it this last couple days that have been so very cold.  I love the colors, the turquoise blue and orange are so fun.

While at my mom's, I also decided to play with her machine embroidery set-up.  I have a Bernina with a machine embroidery unit, but I don't use it very often, largely because I'm usually doing other things at home.  But while on vacation it seemed like a fun thing to play with.

I started with these T-shirts for me, my mom, and my sister using a pattern from Urban Threads that says:  "I like to party, and by party I mean stay home in my PJs and Craft (or Make Art)."   Unfortunately, the shirt tail got stuck under the embroidery needle halfway through my mom's.  I was able to get it out, but managed to cut a hole in the shirttail, so decided to embroider leaves on it to cover the hole.  Becky liked the leaves so much she asked for leaves on hers to match.

The second embroidery project I did was this really cool mountain bear (pattern also from Urban Threads).  I did the first stitch out on the bottom back of my mom's coat and had no problems at all.  Unfortunately, when I got to my coat, somehow between the light purple and dark purple and between the dark navy and the dark purple, I must have bumped the machine or the jacket pulled or something because the design got way off.  See how the purple shading on the legs is way off the dark purple on the bear on the grey coat?  I was really aggravated because I was trying to be really careful, but I don't think it's too noticeable unless you're close.  In any case I can't change it now!

Evidently, my mom made that blue coat sometime in the late 70s or early 80s, so it's held up really really well!


Happy New Year to everybody!