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.