The Forgotten Stocking

Here's Grace posing with a stocking I made in December. I've made one for all four of us over the years, luckily they crochet up quickly. The only tricky part is the sewing together, I don't recommend freehanding it, taking a little time to pin the rounds together is definitely worth the time! The pattern is here if you're interested!

Grace's Second Birthday Gift

Women on Mom's side of the family have long embraced the tradition of embroidered dresser scarves, so I decided to make one for Grace this year.

Here's half of it, the other half is almost exactly identical. David selected the colors from a selection of thread from the sampler I made for Grace's birthday last year.

A mysteriously greenish look at one end.

It's drying on a towel now. I would have had the whole thing completely done but can't figure out how to adjust the tension on my sewing machine to hem it properly. I considered hand stitching the hem, but they are such long sides and the stitches will be very visible -- I just need to deal with the sewing machine. After that, this will be done in five minutes.

Christina's Two Scarves in Progress

I'm not usually a scarf-knitting kind of girl (especially since Steve's aunt Ellen is great at this, and keeps me outfitted in several beautiful scarves a year) but I was recently moved to start two scarf projects. The first is actually a gift for someone else, and came up because Ellen sent me absolutely beautiful hand-dyed and spun yarn from California for Christmas. I think it was merino, but I'm not sure. It seemed like the perfect yarn to try out lace with, so I tried the "Branching Out" pattern on knitty.com and made the pinkish scarf you see here. I liked it more than I thought I would, and it wasn't that hard - but the one skein of yarn wasn't really enough and it's a little short. Ideas? I've thought of beading the edges - that wouldn't actually add functional length, but it might make it look longer at least.

Then, I went out to Seattle and saw my good friend Kerrie, and she has access to some fantastic knitting stores. She was knitting a scarf with Manos Del Uruguay yarn (kettle dyed handcrafted wool made by collectives of women) and I fell in love. She took me to her yarn store, and I bought two hanks of the 104 yarn - they don't name their colorways, but I would call this one harvest (I think Cyndie called it The 70's!).

The pattern is one she found over at Sheep in the City (http://www.sheepinthecity.prettyposies.com/archives/000079.html) and it's one you can do while talking, unlike another project I had brought to Seattle to work on. So, this scarf was born! It's not done yet, but I'm keeping it when it is - I'm excited to cuddle into it and it matches my winter coat! This one will be long enough - I might even have a little of this pretty yarn left over to be an accent on something else.

Charlie's First Birthday

You don't get a really good look here, but I forgot to take a picture of this craft before I gave it to Charlie, so this is the best I can do. I made Charlie a blanket buddy for his first birthday, out of brown fleece, white satin binding, and terry cloth for the head. I can't figure out where I got the pattern, but it looks a bit like this one, but with a bunny head (http://www.kohls.com/products/product_page_vanilla0.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=289849067&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=261405827&prtID=pfx&src=k2776&cm_mmc=Performics-_-Affiliate-_-Shopping.com-_-DDI%20Link)
He seems enamored of it - he likes to cuddle with things, and this has soft, nubbly, and smooth textures all in one. You should have seen the first version, though, where I embroidered the eyes! Steve told me it was too scary to give a child (he said it in a nice way) and then I spent an hour cutting off all of the embroidery. :)