Creatively Christmas 2014

While I haven't been blogging...
I HAVE been making.

Much of my making was Christmas gifts.  However, I have a bunch of patterns to share for things I've created and projects I'm in the midst of.  So if I keep on blogging you will have that to come...

Here are some snippets of our Christmas:

One of my favorite moments is on Christmas Eve when most everyone has gone off to bed and only the indoor Christmas lights brighten the room.  Under the tree is loaded with gifts.  It's very quiet, it's totally serene.  I have to stop myself from taking photos to try to make that special time hold still...

 

Once the morning arrives and the crazy kids awake (4 of these kids are mine, 2 are my sisters and the one at the top of the steps is my youngest sister who is 20 years my junior - so she is lucky enough to get to be part of the batch of kids yet), the Christmas crazy begins.

 

 



For the past several years it's been my goal to use all non-traditional wrappings.  My attempt is to use no paper wrapping at all.  Most of my wrap gets re-used from year to year.  In these photos of the wrapped gifts you can see a variety of wrappings: old clothing, sweaters, pant legs, shirts, skirts etc... made into wrap bags and tied with re-usable ribbons.  Only the handmade paper gift tags get tossed.  Also in the mix is mailing envelopes (you can see one on the far right with a tree drawn on it), handled shopping bags (which are then given as part of the gift), flannel backed and plastic table cloths (which I buy at the dollar store and re-use year after year - works great for bigger gifts), paper grocery bags, the paper and bubblewrap that comes in the shipping boxes from amazon, etc.... Once a gift is open the family returns the clothing bags, ribbons, etc... and I store them in a box to re-use the following year.

For my little niece Maisie, my husband and I co-created doll beds and bedding.  Maisie has three dolls (handed down from her mom, my sister).  There is a blond, brunette and red-head doll.  My husband fashioned them beds that stack in bunks or come apart as separate.

We trash pick wood and re-use old furniture quite a bit.  My husband probably didn't buy anything new to create these beds - he fashioned them all from the odd bits of wood and molding strips already in his garage.

Likewise - I did my part to dress the beds.  After all, these dollies needed a bit of soft and warm for proper sleeping:

Each doll bed had entirely handmade bedding (by me).

An old ikea curtain provided the means to sew hand-tufted mattresses stuffed with leftover couch pillow stuffing.  Atop the mattress was a double-sided flat sheet (easy for a toddler to make up the bed).  Once the doll was on the sheet she'd need a place to rest her head so I sewed a pillow and a coordinating pillow case (to match the sheet and other bedding).  Most of the sheets and pillow cases were made from thrifted vintage sheets.  Atop the doll were then a quilt and a blanket.  The quilts were all handmade (sewing machine made) by me.  Each quilt had a traditional pieced side and a more modern side.  Then, each doll received a crocheted blanket.  There were three total bedding sets, one each with a pink, orange and green theme.  My sewing machine was in the shop for 6 weeks before Christmas and I just barely got it back in time to complete the bed sewing.  WHEW!

I hope Maisie will love the doll items for years to come.

And then there were the hats.  My daughter got 4 (because I like to make hats in front of the TV while watching sappy Hallmark Christmas shows)!  The first one is slouchy and kinda Rasta in an acrylic-cotton blend.

Then there was the acrylic-wool blend purple and turquoise slouchy.  I should have photographed all the hats before giving them so you could see the actual hat other than just seeing it perched on a head with all the detail missing.

 

 This one was again, wool acrylic with a  very chunky yarn and a pattern I got from Moogly blog. Consequently - the white hat was my personal favorite and I might make one for myself.

This final hat was a beret with a pom pom - of course which you cannot see!  It's made from 100% Peruvian wool in a double green/blue twist.

Finally, I winged one final hat - in royal blue with red and white accents in my son's college colors.

It's an unwritten tradition to wear everything you get on xmas morning - so my son has a bow tie, a football jersey and a crochet hat all together.

An annual tradition is for each kid to have a crochet college bunting to hang in the dorm room.  This one is for the son on the left to hang at his college, Shippensburg, and has two little ships wheels included (I made up that ship wheel pattern and will share it).  I also used the capital letters pattern from moogly blog.  Do you love that blog? It's one of my favorites!

Remember what I said about wearing everything you get - take a crazy pj outfit and start adding hats and purses and OH MY!

In a house full of teenagers and twenty-somethings - this group gift was a HUGE big hit and they cheered for about 5 straight minutes.  The gift was a card game called "Cards Against Humanity" which is a very inappropriate version of Apples to Apples.  They have been wanting this crazy and very non-PC card game for a while.  Yes it got played that night - and I and my hubby joined in.  It's very inappropriately funny - but those of you with high morals or young kids would be abashed (I have neither the high morals or the young kids).

A few years back I suggested that the Christmas dinner meal be a casual one.  Since everyone stays at my home for several days before and after Christmas, things are a bit hectic... I figured an easy meal would help with the strain and stress of heavy cooking duties and it does.  Here is our Christmas table in which everyone dresses as he or she pleases, pjs are welcome.  We have 3 pots of soup (2 vegan since most of the family is vegan, and 1 organic but not vegan).  This year we had vegan veggie, vegan creamy broccoli and organic chicken noodle.  Typically I also provide a salad and this year it had arugula, baby kale, baby chard, baby romaine, baby spinach, organic tri-color quinoa, heirloom rainbow cherry tomatoes, roasted yam, dried cranberry, homemade sweet and salty pecans and balsamic dressing.  Often there is homemade bread but this time we had a few organic store-bought.  One whole grain and one with rosemary.  A big pitcher or pomegranate iced tea, some alcoholic beverages and the meal was a done deal.  I don't have fancy dishes enough for everyone, so each third of the table had their own dishes pattern. 

Around mid-day we had eaten some hearty appetizers: peppered salami and sharp cheese for the non-vegans and all the rest was vegan: hot salsa with chips, bread with spinach artichoke dip, anti-pasta salad with olives, peppers, artichokes and mushrooms, roasted veggies with cauliflower, carrots, onions and zucchini, tapenade with crackers, hummus, salted nuts... and a variety of other things that kept us fully satisfied with simple to serve type food.

 And a big bonus this Christmas for me?  I got to sleep in a bedroom and in a bed while the guests were here!!!!  Usually I have to give up my bed and my bedroom and I end up sleeping on a couch or a floor (as does my hubby).  But this year we re-did the "boys" room that was rather teenage boyish and yucky and turned it into a bedroom that we could offer to a guest. SO I then got to sleep in an actual bed in my own room.  And that was Christmas bliss.

I love to make and to give gifts at Christmas.  I don't as much like getting gifts.  However, my hubby gave me two bottles of wine, two yummy little boxes of chocolate and two new indoor scarves... all good stuff!

How was your Christmas?  What are your traditions?  Do you celebrate another holiday or a different religion?  If so, what do you do on Christmas when others are celebrating with lighted trees and holiday wrapping?

Next up - all the making and creating that's been happening for the past 6 months... to include some new free patterns for you!  TA TA and Happy New Year's Eve!  Sher

Indoor hats, Teapots and Hot Lemon Water!

In the midst of all my Christmas gift making this year, I crocheted myself a hat.  Why?  Cuz sometimes it's COLD inside my house and I wanted an indoor hat (yes, it can be worn outdoors too).  I grabbed three colors of wool/acrylic blend yarn and got to work.  I decided not to use a pattern, just to make a circle and keep going until it seemed to turn into a hat.  I didn't want the hat too tight, I wanted it to be just a bit slouchy and I wanted some random stripes.

Here's what I made:

So both my son and my husband say it looks Reggae.  I like that it can be worn slouchy or regular and that it's not too tight.  It feels comfortable to wear around the house tho. I probably look like a GOOF!  I don't care - I'm warm.  It's very cozy.

Again, since it's cold around my house and also since I've been trying to increase my water intake for healthy reasons, I've been drinking a lot of hot water with lemon.  Typically to stay warm, I drink coffee or tea - I like both.  In order to avoid the caffeine, I've switched to hot water with a bit of lemon.  It really does the trick and is quite yummy.  I'm sure you could spruce up the hot water flavor even more by adding lime, apple, orange, cinnamon or other flavors.  Just the lemon works for me.

I've been heating up the water in my new teapot which I LOVE!

Years ago my teapot burnt and I threw it out.  I've been relying on the microwave of late but that just doesn't seem as - I don't know, natural I guess.  I bought a Rachel Ray teapot in a nice bright green color and I adore it.  I love the ergonomic shape, the easy cleaning, the functionality and the whistle.  It's a great teapot.  I bought it on amazon and was happy to see loads of great reviews about it.

When it came time to buy my son a teapot at Christmas so that he could heat the water for the new French Press coffee maker that we gave him, I went right back to amazon and got him a bright navy blue one.

I really LOVE my new teapot.  Just seeing it sit out on the stove makes me happy - it's very bright and cheery.

Stay Warm, Sher

PS - blanket progress and a new bunting pattern coming your way

A Crochet Christmas

There was a LOT of handmade stuff going on at our family Christmas this year and MUCH of it was crochet!  There were also a lot of really cool DIGITAL gifts.  I've posted about it on my other blog HERE.

Are you ready for the big reveal?

These little crocheted cork toys are so cute!  I got the idea off of Pinterest.  Do you follow me there?  If not, click here and choose follow.

I got the idea for the Cork Warriors HERE.  And you can click HERE for the gnome babies.

Next up:

 

I used THIS BUNTING TUTORIAL but I made the triangles bigger by continuing in the same pattern for several more rows.  I also outlined each triangle in white with single crochet and added letters hand cut from felt and attached to the bunting with a very strong fabric glue.  I also stiffened the buntings with a product called StiffNQuick.

 

And there's more (yes, I was very busy making - and I was loving every minute of it!):

 



I began this stool cover using a pattern from Made in K-Town. Here is the link to the pattern post.  I started with the spring mandala and when I ran out of pattern, I just continued it on my own, making up stitches as I went until the stool was an appropriate size.  To make the stool "tuck under" and stay on the top, I decreased a few stitches in eachof the last 3 or 4 rows until I could just squeeze the cover over the stool seat.  After that, it just stayed on tight on it's own.

Not done yet...

 

I made two pillows for my daughter.  Each side of each pillow is a different pattern so she won't get bored with them.  I didn't write down the patterns because I was kind of making it up as I went along.  The pillow on the left is done in linen stitch in rows.  It's basically sc, ch 1, sk 1, sc, repeat and then the next row, sc in the ch 1 space and ch 1 over the previous row's sc.  There are a lot of links on the web for how to do linen stitch.  The pillow on the right is basic granny squares in a join as you go method.  I used the join as you go by Lucy at Attic24.  If you crochet - I'm sure you know her but here is the link to her process.

Here is another page showing the flip side of the pillows:

 

The back side has a patchwork chevron pattern - more work than it was worth.  I actually made triangles and sewed them together to create the chevron pattern the way you would a quilt - then I did big cross stitches to highlight between the rows.  The other pillow back is a variation on the linen stitch using 2dc instead of 1sc, but performing a similar pattern.  The pillows are totally crocheted closed, so they aren't removable without cutting the joining row of crochet to take the two sides apart.

 

Still not done (in fact there will be some crochet projects I can't show you because I forgot to photograph them both before and during Christmas!):

 

 

 

 

I was REALLY pleased with the way these hats and scarves came out.  There are two sets and one set was made for each of my college boys.  In the photo shown, they have switched their crocheted items.  They each gave one another a tee shirt representing their college, so they thought it would be funny to switch the gifts I made for the photo.

 

The hat on the right is called the brain waves hat and it was an AWESOME pattern and free too.  In fact the designer has other patterns I really liked as well.  I found the pattern on Ravelry.  Here is the link.

 

For the scarf on the right - the wavy one, I started out making THIS PATTERN (also from Ravelry and FREE) but after a few rows, I went on and did my own thing which worked out quite well... I added some fringe before I ran out of yarn.  I believe that yarn was a wool/acrylic blend that I picked up at JoAnns.

 

For the hat on the right I played around with two patterns and kind of combined them.  They were also both from Ravelry.  ONE is here and THE OTHER is here.  Of course, I didn't write down any of my variations as I had a lot of gifts to make and I was kind of taking it as it went.

 

Here is another shot of me modeling the items on the left:

 

 

Yet more!

 

 

This scarf for my sister was a great pattern.  I used this pattern to teach my beginning crocheters at the adult school course I taught this past fall.  She looks really cute in the pink.  Here is the link to the pink scarf pattern.

 

Here I am modeling the pink scarf since the photos I took of my sister were a bit blurry -

 

 

 

This Christmas, everyone got into the crochet action and here are some things my daughter crocheted and gave as gifts:

 

 

My daughter Sydney crocheted the scarf for Anna and made up the scarf pattern herself.

 

 

The crayon melt pictures are all over pinterest, but adding the crocheted touches was my daughter's idea.  Aren't these awesome?  And she managed to make these gifts while working two jobs and attending grad school.

 

A few final Christmas crochet items from me:

 

 

My aunt got a book mark (they are easy to mail).  I sent her the ripple one.  For the ripple bookmark, I used the ripple blanket pattern by Lucy at Attic24.  Get that HERE.

 

The granny square bookmarks are ones I just made up - one went to my daughter and another went to my German daughter (Katrin, who lived with us as an exchange student). 

 

The striped scarf bookmark went to my 6 year old nephew, Quinn, who is currently reading the Harry Potter series.  I thought it looked like a Gryffindor scarf!  I didn't use any pattern for that - it's just single crochet for 3 rows and then switch colors.  I did sc around the entire outside edge and added fringe to one edge however.

 

Finally, if you remember a few weeks before Christmas - I gave a little sneak peek of my holiday wreath.  Well, I haven't written up all the patterns but most of them I either found on pinterest and can be accessed through this pinterest board or I found photos of and figured out the patterns on my own - and again, I was so busy and rushed I didn't write them down - but many of the patterns were very cute so I may want to make them again - and in that case, I will record what I do!  The teeny tiny stars as well as the holly and red berries are again from Lucy at Attic24. You may be familiar with my other crochet wreaths in this series... I made a summer wreath and blogged about it here (which I entitled spring wreath but eventually felt it was more summery) and also a fall/autumn wreath which I simply LOVE! 

 

Here are the closer up and also the final results from my Christmas themed crochet wreath.

 



 

 

 

So I hope you liked my little walk down crochet lane at my Christmas house!  Did you notice that my photos of the crochet projects are digitally scrapbooked?  Did you also notice the beautiful Nordic papers that I used?  You can purchase the digital nordic artwork for use with my awesome Creative Memories Storybook Creator software package HERE or you can purchase universal Nordic digital art for use with photoshop or other digital scrapbook packages.  Happy Hooking for the Holidays!  Sher