Christmas and Winter Bag Making

 In the last couple of months I've done a little bag making in between other projects.  This is something I enjoy.  I started by making myself a new wallet.  My prior one, though much beloved, was completely worn out.  Because I'm 100% a little old lady apparently, I wanted one that had both a zip pocket and a place for my checkbook.  I made this one out of some rainbow vinyl and dinosaur fabric in my stash and it fills me with delight.

Last year sometime I found this wonderful crazy knitting fabric and fell in love with it.  I love the style of the design and the color palette was gorgeous.  I don't usually buy new fabric but I couldn't resist and snagged some of this.  I made this fairly large knitting/project tote for my knitting friend Kristin's birthday this January.  There's still enough left to make another project bag so that'll probably be on the radar at some point.

She's also a scientist so I lined it with my happy lab glassware fabric.

Finally I made this new clutch purse/wallet for my sister for Christmas.  She and my mom both really like this pattern which is from the Greenback Wallet Trio from Sew Sweetness.  I've made them several over the years,  when one wears out I just make another.  The outside is some purple cordouroy from some pants I'd worn out but had been saving for something just like this, and I couldn't help putting some more dino fabric inside.

So a fun few bags over the last few months, but probably no more for a little while, I'm trying to focus on big quilt projects while I have a little bit of time.

Christmas Crafting

 I'm still getting caught up sharing the things I worked on during the end of last year during the Christmas crafting season.  

As chronic readers may know, I always make handmade ornaments for friends and family each year and this year I was inspired by a dual desire to use up some of the very pretty and sparkly but awful to knit and crochet with ribbon yarn that is in my stash and to do something with the shells I picked up when my friend Kristin and I went to Savannah.  I considered a variety of things but wound up going with a simple tassel based angel.  Each one is just a touch different but they all have the same components.

Still on the Christmas tree front, I was so excited to get this beautiful handmade spiky ornament from my sister this year for Christmas.  My mom made a bunch of these when she was first married (fifty years ago now) and I've always loved them.  It's wonderful to have a new generation of them made by my sister.

While at my sister's for Christmas day, we had a scavenger hunt for the kids to find their stockings.  One of the steps was that each family member had to build a lego gingerbread person.  I got very very excited by this and had a great time decorating mine.   I think they were designed to be tree ornaments, but I liked mine so much I know have it hanging year round on my car mirror.

Finally, I'm a big lover of nativity scenes, and I decided that my "main" one needed some dinosaurs.  I mean, I pretty much think everything benefits by the addition of dinosaurs and I feel like they would fit in well with the other nativity animals.  I ordered some paint-your-own ceramic dinosaurs from Etsy, and then as a Christmas craft project, Brett and I each painted one to add to my exisiting nativity.  They were pretty good size wise I think.

I painted the t-rex and Brett painted the brachiosaur.

I think they make great additions to the nativity.  The dinosaurs came in a set of six, so we'll paint two more next year.  It's really an eclectic assembled set.  The base set and hut were a gift from my mom when I got my very first apartment about 25 years ago.  And of course the dinosaurs were just added this year.  But the three angels are much much older.  They belonged to my great grandmother.  She was married in 1926, and while I have no specific info on these pieces, my guess is that they come from sometime in the mid twentieth century, 1930-1950 maybe?  Maybe next year I'll see if I can find amy makers marks or anything on them.  In any case all together it's pretty special to me.  Happy (very late) Christmas!

Miscellaneous knitting and crochet

 Having now past both Christmas and Valentine's day I thought I'd share a bunch of knit and crochet projects from the last 4-5 months.  Some of them were gifts and some not, but I'd never had a chance to blog about any of them.

First up are these ankle socks.  This pair of ankle socks uses leftover yarn from two other pairs.  I wanted to do something different for the cuff so I followed this cute short row petal pattern I found in a sock knitting book.  Unfortunately I thought I had the pattern memorized and sort of screwed myself up for the bind off but they came out cute.

These socks were for my mom, I actually knit them for her a couple of years ago but I used crappy yarn for the heels and it had worn through.  Therewasn't really much point to mending them, so I took them apart and knit new heels and a cuff.  I gave them back to her and hope she can wear them.  And the moral of the story is never knit socks with anything except sock yarn.

This year I also really committed to learning colorwork.  I started by working on a colorwork tote bag but transitioned away from that (a WIP I'll get back to at some point) to start on some hats as presents.  A couple of years ago my mom gave me the knitting the national parks book which has colorwork hat patterns for each national park.

I started out by making the Yellowstone one as a Christmas present for my friend Brett and the Saguaro National Park one for my friend Melody.  Doing those two colorwork projects helped me build my skills.  I'm still not great at it, but I'm currently knitting a colorwork sweather with fingering weight yarn so I'm still getting better!

Brett also wanted a resistance hat, so I also knit him this pink pussy hat.  He should have a warm head all winter.   In the top hat picture you can actually see one of my crafty Christmas presents from my mom, she pieced and quilted me a table runner with little red priuses carrying christmas trees!  For years every Thanksgiving I'd cut a Christmas tree in New Mexico and tie it to the top of my prius and drive it back the 500 miles to Oklahoma.  There were a few touch and go trips in there including one memorable time it almost blew off the side and a kind man at a gas station had to help me re-secure it.  I still get a tree in New Mexico each Thanksgiving but my Subaru is long enough the tree can fit inside.

My brother-in-law really likes turtles so my sister crocheted him this one.  I'd seen some cute turtle costumes online so I thought I'd make a tank costume for the turtle since my brother-in-law is also a historical artillery enthusiast.  I didn't have a pattern, just sort of made it up as I went along, so the proportions are a bit off but I think he came out cute.

My good friend Carolyn also likes turtles and Brett bought her this one from a local craft fair.  I crocheted it a stegosaurus costume because everyone needs a dinosaur costume.  He also looks a little like a spiny koopa from Mario, but adorable all the same.

Finally, for this year's family valentines I crocheted everyone hearts.  I sort of made these up as I went along too- kind of a modified granny square based on a picture of one I saw online.  It was a fun way to use up some scrap yarn.

After all that, there won't be any more small projects for a while now.  I have to focus all my limited knitting time on my dinosaur colorwork sweater!  I expect it will take quite a long time to finish.

2023 Christmas Crafts

 I didn't do as much crafting as I sometimes do for Christmas, but I did have make a few things.  I always really enjoy making small things for my friends and family. 

This year for the Christmas tree ornaments I made, I used all these old wooden spools I've been saving, many of them came from my sister's mother-in-law Mary Alyce (thanks Mary!) It was super fun to pick trims and beads from my stash to accent them.

And, I just have to share this absolutely delightful Christmas ornament my friend Helena sent me all the way from Canada!  She's a knitting and quilting friend, and I love the neon yarn and adorable hanger.

I also finally got around to making a couple of these little origami multi-pocket pouches.  One was for my mom and one for my friend Kristin.  It was pretty hilarious, after my mom opened hers she laughed and told me she'd made a couple of that same pattern for her friends for Christmas.

I also knitted a few washcloths/dishcloths to give as gifts.  They're wonderful to use but wear out, so I figure having a new one now and again isn't a bad thing.  I think I wound up knitting four?  But evidently I only took pictures of one of them.

This was a pre-Christmas (Advent) present for Brett,  I made two little advent calendar drawers for each date.  One had a candy for Brett and one had a tasty dog treat for Cash.

Finally, I had a lot of fun making the clothes for these nativity people.  The wooden people are from our church's Godly Play set, and our priest wanted to use them at the children's service on Christmas Eve.  I think I shared these in an I like post, but I wanted to have them here too.

Then in addition to the one set of nativity people, she wanted to have little swaddled baby Jesuses to hand out to all the children at the service, so at the last knitting night of the year, we glued/tied swaddles on fifty little peg people!

Our friend Shirley didn't want to be in the picture,  we didn't obscure her by accident!

I think that's a wrap on 2023 Christmas Crafts.  Pretty soon I'll start pinning ornament ideas for 2024