dead as a doornail!

Aaaw! I got killed today. By a fantastic pair of socks! Darn sock wars - I didn't even get one kill in! But, if I had to get killed it couldn't have been by a better assassin! Look at this great package - red socks, with some homemade chai mix (which makes the whole deadly package smell amazing!) and this hilarious newsletter with headlines broadcasting the kill!

And she even sent me the leftover sock yarn!

color on a grey day

This goes out to English Emily since she first brought up how happy color can make you - especially these days when it's nothing but fog and grey skies. Today I ran to the fabric shop after cutting out of work at 4:00 because they had a 40% off sale on all of their quilting fabrics. yep, the quilting fabrics that I need like I need a hole in my head. shut up. Just look at this joyous spread! I just stacked up whatever caught my fancy, then only took 1/2 yard increments of each one - plenty for quilty patchworky stuff, but still super cheap. I came home in the best mood ever! Yes, I'm aware that I should be furiously knitting a sock, not buying fabric - that's next!

SOCK WARS!!

The bloody battle starts tonight!!! I'm ready and armed with my dpns - my first victim is called "killergranny" - I never thought I'd have to take down an old lady, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do! who else is in the sock wars fray this year?

requisite resolutions

I know it's all cliched to talk about how everyone feels like they have to make resolutions even though they know they won't keep them - but I really do feel that way - like if I don't even try, then it's just giving up, even if I'm pretty sure i'll fail eventually. However, last year I vowed to have a pair of socks on the needles at all times and I'm pretty sure I did that. How many pairs did I churn out? not that many - but that's wasn't the goal! I just said I'd have them on the needles! (brief Rav break to count the actual number of socks I made) OK - I totally take that back - I made 6 pairs of socks last year, which I think is pretty decent!

So, in light of that successful(ish) resolution, these are things I'm gonna try my darndest at in 2010 ( I love to say 20-10!):

-stop machine washing my socks! the 1st pair that I made in 2009 are fairly well ruined now - they were made out of Cherry Tree Hill and they felted to hell and back! I can still get them on my feet, but the pattern -which used to be so beautiful - is no more!

-eat more like a sane person, and realize that it really does count even if you're sneaking another bite in the kitchen where no one can see you!

-AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - knit from my stash! that means I need to stop buying yarn because it's on sale (please disregard the yarn that I just added to my stash - it was on sale, see?) or because I like it. I have so much great yarn and so many great projects planned for it - I need to work from the yarn end, and not the pattern end of knitting. ask the yarn what it wants to be and make that - not find a pattern, then buy yarn because there's nothing quite right in my stash.

-Sew more, embroider more, craft more, weave more - i sometimes knit to the exclusion of this other stuff that I really enjoy!

Alright, there - I've done my requisite resolutions.

-

Handmade Update

I realized that when I belted out a hat for my brother, I'd officially made something for everyone on my christmas list this year! My mom loved her quilted wall hanging and her thrummed mittens (which fit! and she, being my mother, didn't mind the wonky parts where I made my thrums too fat and unevenly spaced them!) My uncle seemed happy with his sweater - and it did fit him (although the sleeves were a little long and I think the shoulder cap could have been shallower - it was a little bunchy when I sewed it in and I thought I blocked it out alright, but I dunno) but I think one of my favorite things that I made were these Noah's Ark ornaments for my SIL - I'll probably make her more for her birthday in January!

Quilting for Christmas

My mother wanted a quilt top wall hanging for Christmas and I wanted an excuse to buy fat quarters, so it was a perfect combination! Unfortunately, she's kind of into the country primitive look lately, and she mailed me a couple pictures she'd clipped of the color combinations she liked - it's that sort of tea stained looking red, white and blue kind of look. Not what I'd choose for sure, but it'll make her happy!

I learned how to do the quick piecing method (where you cut the squares then sandwich them and sew two diagonal seams 1/4" from the center, then cut down that center line, to make perfect half squares, and then you can flip them and do it again for perfect quarter squares - you end up with fantastic triangles but never have to deal with sewing triangles together at all!) It was SO much fun!This is about 20"x20". I think I'll put some thin batting inside and put a back on it and use ribbons to tie it to a rod. Or, if I don't do that, then I don't actually have to quilt the thing. But the back isn't attractive, so I feel like I ought to do something and if I put a back on it seems silly to not quilt it, you know? I'll figure it out before Christmas!

As cute as the day is long

A little stuffie I made my my youngest niece, for Christmas.