Christmas Gifts... Sewing

Christmas Gifts

I started this post a year ago and never finished it.  This Christmas and last Christmas I made up some Christmas gifts.  I just thought I'd put them in one post... my mom likes to see what I sew.

At the very top, a fleece blanket I made up for Sylvia (my son's girlfriend).  I just trimmed the edges of the fleece with a rotary cutter and then perforated little holes around the perimeter of the blanket with a skip stitch blade in my rotary cutter. Then I just crocheted a simple border around the blanket. She loves this blanket. She brings it with her every time she comes to visit.



I also made up some pot holders.  A lot of these cute fabrics are from my Mom's fabric stash. Thanks, Mom!

This year and last year I also made up a number of soup bowl cozies.  These are not microwave safe but it's nice to put a hot bowl of soup or oatmeal in a bow cozy to keep your hands from burning.  I like using two contrasting fabrics in the bowl cozies. The cozies are reversible so you can use what ever side you like.  I made the bowl cozie in blue for Zach.

 

The bowl cozy in tan and burgundy features a Harry Potter themed fabric; it's a fabric that resembles the Marauders Map.  Sylvia loves the Harry Potter books so this bowl cozy was made for her.

This bowl cozy with flames on it was my practice bowl cozy.  I gave this one to Zach, too!

I am suddenly having a difficult time adding photos to my blog posts and it's messing with the formatting. So I apologize if this post comes through a little weird looking.  Frustrating!

Mitts for the Shop

Some Fingerless Mitts for the Shop

My local yarn shop is Yarned & Dangerous in Canon City, Colorado. The yarn shop owner, Ann, often receives samples of yarn and needles from vendors.  Recently I was able to bring home some of these goodies and knit up some items for the shop.  I ended up making two pairs of fingerless mitts.

Up first:  Yarn from Sirdar brand. The yarn line is called "Sublime" which I gather is Sirdar's Luxury Line of yarn (that's what the label says).  The yarn is named "'Elodie" and the color way is "Rosalyn".  Right away, the yarn reminded me of a Claude Monet Impressionist painting.  This is a pattern I improvised as I went along. I've made mitts before using just 50 grams of DK weight yarn. Thankfully I kept some good notes  from the prior mitts so I whipped these up in no time and did NOT run out of yarn.  Yay!

What do you think? I think the colors are so similar to the Monet Haystack painting.

Up next: Yarn from Louet brand. This yarn is called "Gems" (it's a 

Sport Weight yarn) and the color is a lovely shade of lavender.  The pattern is FREE on Ravelry and is called "Emilee Dee Mitts".  It's a favorite pattern of mine.  It's a great pattern for DK and Sport Weight yarn. I made these mitts a little longer than the pattern calls for and I also added a few rows to the thumb.  

My girl dog Sandy is my little shadow. I sort of kneeled down on the carpet to snap some photos of the mitts and Sandy decided she needed to be in the shot as well. She even got the concept:

 "We are taking photos of our FRONT PAWS!"

Adorable dog!  

For both pairs of mitts, I used some amazing knitting needles.  They are pictured above at the very top. The needles have the "Louet" brand name on them but they are made by Kollage.  These are square (not round) double pointed needles, US Size 4, and they are made of brushed metal. The points are nice and sharp.  I loved knitting with them and highly recommend them.

Little Christmas Stockings

Little Christmas Stockings



I made up this Little Christmas Stocking pattern a few years ago; the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn.  I have been wanting to make some of these stockings, but just did not have the right colors for Christmas stockings in my yarn stash in worsted weight.

I decided to try out the pattern in some yarns I had on hand but the yarns were heavy fingering weight and DK weight.  In the stocking above (in two shades of gray), the cuff is a darker faux mohair yarn and the rest of the stocking is a lighter gray DK baby yarn. Both yarns are from King Cole brand yarns.

In the stocking with white cuff and the green stocking, I used a white DK baby yarn and Patons Kroy Sock yarn.  These are fun and quick. The smaller stockings look nice hanging on a Christmas tree.

For both of these stockings, I used US Size 4 double pointed needles.

Weaving

Weaving



My local yarn shop, Yarned & Dangerous in Canon City, Colorado, has many folks enthused about a new hobby... weaving.  This is thanks to Diane and Ann (the shop owner).  Diane has been teaching a variety of weaving classes at the shop this past year and I just had to give it a try to understand a little bit more what everyone was talking about. Warp! Weft! Heddle! What?!?

At Yarned & Dangerous, there is a corner of the shop dedicated to weaving supplies and now customers can purchase Ashford brand weaving looms through the shop.  It's so fun to see what folks are making on their looms.  You can follow the "Yarned & Dangerous" Facebook page at this following LINK.




In my weaving class (back in October I think) I used a small table top loom.  Diane already had the warp on the loom for all of the students.  The warp are the threads of yarn on the loom that are "vertical".  When you weave through the warp in a horizontal manner (back and forth), that's the weft.  We got to try out a variety of stitches as you can see in my weaving above.  When I was done with my weaving, I turned the warp into fringe at the bottom of the weaving.  At the top, I used some macramé stitches and attached the weaving to a twig from a cottonwood tree.

I don't plan to invest in a loom any time soon, but I do love the look of the woven items folks at the shop are making.