Crafty McCrafterson

I've been a crafty fool lately, but I couldn't share photos of some of the stuff I was working on until after Christmas, since it was for giftage. First, though, an update on the eternal stitchery project, since several people have inquired about it lately:

Not to brag, but I've sort of been kicking ass and making counted cross-stitch my folksy little bitch. I thought I would hate doing the background work, but it's actually pretty enjoyable, at least when I'm not using one of the umpteen shades of brown. I do get rather sick of the brown.

The highlighted / colored-in areas on the chart are what I've done:


I've managed to keep the project a secret from my dad so far, and since he's never online and doesn't know this blog exists, it's safe to talk about it. I definitely did the right thing when I decided not to put any pressure on myself to finish it by a certain deadline. There's no way I could've finished it for Christmas. Next Christmas, maybe.

I did finish a project that I started quite a long time ago. I started working at the craft store in October 2004, right when knitting was getting really, really trendy. The craft store had a ridiculous supply of really awesome yarn, and I got my mom to teach me how to knit and made a few scarves. I took my sister out to the store and let her pick any yarn she wanted and told her I'd knit her a scarf. I knitted (knit?) almost all of it, and then got my current job, lost track of the project, and forgot how to knit and purl. I'd been meaning to get the scarf back out and finish it for a long time, but never got around to it until about a week ago. I dug it out and took it over to the house for a refresher knit / purl lesson, and even though my brain was half-baffled, my hands remembered how to do it almost right away. I really wanted to give it to Sis before she leaves for Ireland on January 6th, and I did! I finished up the last foot of the scarf on the 23rd, and got the tassels done on the 26th.

I don't care who you are...that's a nice scarf.
(Mostly because the fluffiness of the yarn hides all the mistakes.)

The scarf really looks best when it's on someone, though, and so MB volunteered to model it:

"Don't you want a handsome man in the photo?"

I gave the scarf to Sis today, and she loved it. Now when I get to missing her, I'll be able to think of my fuzzy hand-knitted scarf keeping her warm on her Irish adventure.

She also got this for Christmas:


It was supposed to be one of those fleece blankets held together by cutting strips around the edges and tying knots, but Mom stitched the two pieces together on her serger so none of the surface area of the blanket would be wasted in tying the knots. After Mom sewed the edges, I fake-quilted it by threading and tying knots of yarn through both layers at semi-regular intervals to keep the layers from shifting and sliding around. Like the scarf, the dragon blanket was a pretty big hit.

We didn't receive anything particularly crafty for Christmas, but we still scored a pretty respectable loot pile:


How about you? Did you score any sweet loot or complete any long overdue projects this holiday season?


Reading:  The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

Playing:  a mix of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs