From Vacation to Vacation!

I had a great Christmas with my family, full of delicious food and fun surprises. One surprise being a new camera, which was used to take all of the pics in today's post!

There's been a lot of crafting going on in the house, and not just from me. Between opening presents and eating, we've been watching some of our favorite Christmas movies while working on different projects. My sister surprised all of us with some "subversive crosstich" presents... they made hillarious presents and I think she has a few requests for next year. My other sister has been busy scrapbooking with her new toys, and my mom has been busy with a variety of projects. Me? I've been busy playing with my camera, adding linings to some of my cosmetic bags. I love the results!!:


I also have these great sock labels to share:


I made the labels a few weeks ago to wrap around the socks I'm giving for Christmas. And here we have the first gifted pair of socks being modeled!:



Ooh, and we have a gifted scarf being modeled:


I made this scarf using size 19 US needles and doing a "double loop" on each stitch. I'm not sure of the proper term for it, but I wrapped the yarn around the needle twice for each stitch. I knit two long, thing segments and then attached them with a piece of ribbon. I finished the scarf with a combination of the yarn and ribbon as fringe.

While I love making gifts, I particularly love the giving of gifts:-D

Now I'm off for a week of snow angels and skiing in Colorado!

Bazaar Bizarre and More Presents!

Nikki and I had a great time at the Bazaar Bizarre in Boston! Through a little sleuthing, we found out that the BB was starting at 12 instead of 1 and that the first 300 people would receive a tote bag full of goodies! Needless to say, we made sure we arrived early, so early that we had time for a photo shoot:

Facing the sun:


The new buttons on the back of my white hat:



My big purchase of the day was two t-shirts from Birdhead Designs. One is a present, the other is for me!

The rest of the weekend was spent napping and knitting. I realized that I wouldn't finish some of the more complicated patterns I had planned for Christmas, so I experimented with a few quick and easy scarf patterns. After the weekend we had, I think it's appropriate to name this first pattern "Challah". Doesn't it look like the braided bread?



I'm going to try a different combination of cables for the second scarf, and post the patterns soon!

The Deed is Done!

Tonight was Grey's and knitting with my pals. Minona hosted, and she just happens to have a statue of the Virgin Mary in her front yard. Since winter's coming and Christmas is just around the corner, I hooked Mary up with an early gift:




I like Mary in the dark, but you can't see her brilliant crimson scarf.

SHHHHHH Minona doesn't know! At least not yet. Horray for my first venture into knit-tagging!

Between exams, I've been busy this week unravelling my first sweater and making some great hats.

Before:


After:


I was never going to wear the sweater, but the knitting of it was a great learning experience. I love reusing the yarn and the hats are nice and cozy. Plus they are so quick that a few may be used for Christmas presents! They could use some adornment, which will hopefully happen this weekend. After I hand in my stat exam and between oohing and ahhing at the BizBaz!

Horray for holidays and the end of the semester! I'm going to be a happy camper all weekend!

i. want. to. post. but

i've been so busy and my camera's a little crazy. there are no pics in this post, but they are on the camera. so, i'll just mention a little of what i've been up to: turning my first sweater into something even better, making some kicka$$ sock labels for christmas presents, weaving in ends on the many socks that have been knitted.

unless yarn and buttons are going to fall into my lap, i really have to make a trip to the craft store this week in order to finish some final gifts!

ok, maybe there's one pretty picture from my stash...

Shining Stars!

On the tree:


AND on a baby-sized shining star hat! I reduced the needle size from 7 to 5, following the rest of the pattern as written and it seems to be perfect:

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but I decided to do it on one circular needle using the magic loop method rather than using 6 circulars. I'm not a big fan of circulars to begin with, and when a pattern calls for 6 of them I cringe.

We finally have some winter weather in Boston. Although the snow didn't last through the day, it helped to put everyone in the Christmas spirit!


Next up - 1. finishing the couple of presents that I've slacked on, 2. wrapping gifts, 3. FINALS (first one is almost done!), 4. maybe some holiday baking?...sleep.

Socks, beer, and mischief

School has kept me from blogging, but I've been able to get some knitting (and Christmas decorating!) in.

First, I finished the Falling Leaves socks (see the last post for the link). They are a knitty pattern, and I really enjoyed knitting them! They are a gift, and I think they turned out really well:



**In this shot the green heal looks small, but it's really a normal size.


Last night I went to the Nameless Coffee House in Cambridge and heard some great live music, including Three Tall Pines. They played Bob Dylan's Wagon Wheel last night, and I was in heaven. After the show, we went out for drinks and decided to take a few glamour shots of my felted cosmetic bag:


Now with "model hands":


I want to post a few of the bags on Etsy this week, but it's been challenging to take good pictures of them. I don't know if the bar shots will help, but they were fun:-D.


Finally, the mischief:



This item, knitted with love, is going to be put to use on Thursday evening. Any guesses as to what it is or how it will be used? Could it be a knitted octopus? Why would I knit an octopus? unless I plan on stealing the octopus from the Boston aquarium and replacing it with this... I guess you'll have to wait and see.

And finally, an excellent food tip: Yesterday I made a salad of - spinach, potatos (baked until just soft and added to the salad while warm), fresh rasberries, avocado, blue cheese. Top it with balsamic vinegar and olive oil - the dressing and cheese melt into the potatos and they warm up the rest of the salad just enough to get the flavors to blend. It's great!