Hearts onesie

I've been a little lazy with my current project (Kate's wristwarmers), but here's a baby onesie I finished a couple weeks ago.

Kate's Wrist Warmers

I started making wristwarmers for Kate last night. She designed the color scheme, and the pattern came from Punk Rock Patterns. I finished the first one tonight. Hot, huh?

my mitten model

Christmas cards

Here's a conundrum: Where do you display your Christmas cards? I tried setting them on the hutch, but only cards that open work that way--photos don't really display well. I thought about taping them to the glass doors of the hutch, but then I'd have a tape mess. I don't have enough magnets to put them all on the fridge....

SO after some thought, I decided to take down one of my art pieces and replace it for the season with a bulletin board. A long skinny one, which I wrapped in wrapping paper. I don't know, is it cheesy? I think it works...

By the way, ending Christmas cards takes forever, and makes a mess! Just in case anyone was wondering.

'Tis the Season

...to get all dolled up for the camera. It took at least an hour this evening, using a timer and end tables stacked on top of one another, but the Christmas Card Photo Shoot is complete. Things I learned:

1. Kate does not appreciate the time and quantity of photos required to make one good Christmas card.
2. Christmas tree lights don't really show up if you use a flash, but without a flash, photos are dark and blurry. We went with dark and blurry. Gotta show those twinkly lights!
3. Snapfish really does make ordering photo cards a Snap! That part took about 2 minutes, and I just have to go pick them up from Walgreens tomorrow.

A few of my favorites:

Child's striped mittens

I was sick all weekend and stayed home from work today, so I put in a few hours on my mitten project. Not too shabby for my first mittens ever, but I guess I need improvement in not leaving holes around where the thumb connects. When I was working in the ends, I tried to use them to close up the holes, and somehow the thumb on one of them ended up going kinda crooked. I don't usually block my projects, but I'm hoping a little blocking will fix that.

Staying home sick was interesting. I usually would rather poke my eyes out with my knitting needles than watch daytime TV, but this time I was pleasantly surprised. Tyra did a really good show on racism. I didn't catch the whole thing, but in and out of my snoozing, I saw her apologize to the crowd for calling everyone with covered heads "middle eastern." It was a really honest moment, and I appreciated her setting an example of being willing to admit mistakes en route to a better understanding of racism. There were also a couple of "experts" on, talking about how some ethnic groups have sort of spent a period in history being subjected to racism, and then the intensity sort of subsided, but intense racism against African Americans persists. Very bluntly, one expert's answer was, this is the only ethnic group that didn't immigrate to North America, but was brought in chains. Quite the reflective moment on my sick day watching daytime TV.

Felted Coasters

My first felting project! The pattern for these coasters came from Knitting at Knoon Designs. I like the final project, although I have to say they didn't turn out how I expected. I figured felting would melt everything together and hide my mistakes. It seems to have accentuated them instead. Luckily, in crafting, imperfections are charming.

What I'm working on today

It's Saturday, my girlfriend's out of town, and I've got no obligations. You know what that means--all-day craftfest!

Kate's employer has a hat and mitten drive every year for the school across the street. A teacher from the school recently came over to the office to ask if the mitten drive was going to happen soon, because the temperature's been in the teens in Minneapolis this week, and most of the kids are coming to school with no hats or mittens!

Well, I've been meaning to do my first pair of mittens, and what better way to test the waters than with kids mittens? Since they'll be smaller, they'll have to take last time! I started on them last night with the leftover yarn from my coasters, using a the "Child's Simple Striped Mittens pattern from Sivia Harding Knit Design.

So today I'm blogging, knitting mittens, and watching Rick Steve's European Christmas on the TPT telethon. (Side note: why is it that I never see Rick Steves on TPT except when there's a telethon going on?).

Later, when I get off the couch and gather up the laundry, I'm going to wash the onesie I made at craft night this week. I am hoping that after it's been washed and dried, the cut edges will curl up and look suuuper cute!

"tempting" sweater

Ever take on a project because you want to take on the challenge, even though you probably have no use for the final product?

I saw the pattern for "Tempting" on knitty.com. I'd never done an article of clothing yet, so I thought a short sleeved sweater would be an easier starting point than a full sweater. It took me a year to finish it, not because it's a hard project but because after I got about 75% done, I lost interest. I hate short sleeved sweaters! Crafters, beware. You may be drawn into a project by an exciting technique or challenge, but it's a huge waste of time if you don't have a use for the final product in mind!

I guess one good thing did come out of this project. I taught myself how to knit in the round and how to knit on double pointed needles. And I now have the confidence to start a big sweater project that I might actually use. Hopefully next time it won't take a year!

fancy paper makes good art

I needed something for my bedroom walls that didn't cost a lot. This series is made from scrapbook paper and cheap frames from Michael's.

circuit board photo frames

One of my proudest achievements. I made this photo frame for my girlfriend a couple of years ago for Christmas. There's a great surplus store in Saint Paul called Ax-Man. They have aisles of random, random shit. Every time I go there I get craft ideas, because most of the stuff is so far out there that it's hard to imagine what the original purpose of the object was. So your imagination gets fired up.

I don't know if these things are called circuit boards, but that's what I decided to call them. There was a bin full of 'em. I bought a couple feet of wire to hook them together, and used a hot glue gun to glue my photos to the backs.

Ties

I'm always drawn to neckties--the fabric is so rich! This wallhanging is a bunch of ties staplegunned to an empty frame. All materials came from thrift stores.

Green scarf

Here's a scarf I whipped up last winter using a skein of yarn I found at a thrift store (Savers on Lake Street in Minneapolis usually has quite the variety of yarn. Every time I go there I stock up on half-used skeins and imagine those poor souls who bought a bunch of yarn only to find out they didn't have the patience to be a knitter).

It's a simple 2x2 rib. Nothing fancy.

Welcome

Welcome to my DIY blog! Here I'll be posting photos and journals of my life as a crafter. I hope you enjoy it!