Those Christmas projects I couldn't show before

I did lots of knitting this month, but very little blogging, because most of the projects were Christmas gifts.



Now that Christmas is over, I can finally show what I was working on.

There were some sewing projects. A pear-shaped pincushion, for my mother-in-law the quilter. This is from a Heather Bailey pattern.


... and some patchwork picture frames, from Denyse Schmidt Quilts.


Then there were lots of knitted ornaments. There were mini mittens, shown in the previous post, and tiny sweaters on silver-wire hangers, pattern here.


According to German folklore, finding a bird's nest in your Christmas tree is good luck, and will bring your family health and happiness throughout the year. That inspired these knitted nests, with little blue felted eggs.


The pattern for the nest is in Closely Knit -- I modified the design slightly to make a smaller, shallower nest. The book includes a pattern for knitted eggs, but I made mine by needle felting some blue merino roving.

I made my mother a simple triangular shawl from some salmon-colored hand-dyed mohair boucle from Mohair in Motion. This one really went down to the wire -- I finished it at about 11 pm the night before I had to give it to her. Unfortunately, in the rush, I forgot to take a photo when it was done. I'll have to try to remember to get one later.

And here's one final photo -- the pilot cap from the previous post, modeled by my four-month-old great-niece. Isn't she adorable?

A difficult time for blogging

It's a difficult time for blogging about crafts projects, because I've been spending so much time working on Christmas gifts -- and I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise by showing them here. And on top of that, I've been working on a project that I'm trying to get published, so I can't show that yet either.

As is so often the case, I've been overcome by a last-minute urge to give handmade Christmas gifts. This feeling tends to strike somewhere around Thanksgiving, rather than in July when it would be more useful. I've been knitting and sewing up a storm since Thanksgiving weekend, alternating back and forth as I get tired of one project, or my hands start to ache. I don't think I've taken on more than I can handle, but we'll see if I'm still knitting on the car ride to visit family!

I think I can safely show a couple of projects, since their intended recipients are much too young to be reading my blog. The first is from the book Denyse Schmidt Quilts, Steve the Cat.


I think he's pretty adorable, don't you?

And then there's this little pilot cap.


I'm afraid it doesn't really look like much without a baby to model it. Hopefully I'll have a better photo to post later. This is from the second Mason Dixon Knitters book, Knitting Outside the Lines.

There's one more thing I can safely post, some ornaments for our Christmas tree (which hasn't even been bought yet!) Aren't these teeny little mittens the cutest thing ever? They're only about an inch and a half long. The pattern is here, at Pink Argyle.


Well, back to the holiday knitting ... more photos to come in a couple of weeks.