Gift Making

We tried to make all our gifts by hand this year. We almost did it, due to time there are two people getting bought gifts but I still think we did pretty well. Here is a few of the gifts I made this year.


Dragon Hat for my nephew, knitted and needle felted.


Loop Bag, this is a pattern I have been working on for about a year and I finally like how it is turning out. It leaves a lot of room for creativity.


WIP this will be sewn on to a t-shirt, a present for one of the designers in the family.


Needle Felted hat for my niece.

One Good thing One Creative Thing Day 16, 17, 18

Day 16

One Good Thing: The joy of going to the library with Alder, as I am getting better at choosing books that he'll like. Realizing how to use these same skills to avoid conflict situations and find more activities that we can both enjoy (more on this later).

One Creative Thing: Stayed up way too late making paper houses to hang in Alder's room.

Day 17

One Good Thing: As someone who usually tries to get out of the house as fast as possible (I have always had a hard time staying home when it's light out) but we stayed home until late afternoon, cooking and doing various projects together and separate.

One Creative Thing: Lots of creating going on this year, except for one hand me down gift we are making every gift this year. Cut out one pair of pajamas with Alder's help. Went to Thursday knitting and started one hat, stayed up way too late (yeah the sun was coming up) finishing one hat and getting most of the way through the next one.

Day 18

One Good Thing: Reading American Bloomsbury by Susan Cheever, lots of pausing around town to read between dropping Alder off and going to work, ah bliss.

One Creative Thing: Umm seeing how I stayed up to daylight I'm going to carry over last nights knitting, needless to say reading and working are all I'm doing today.

One Good thing One Creative Thing Day 7

Quick note from work (I should be sweeping)

One Good Thing: Had a wonderful dinner with some of our family last night. The preparation for Thanksgiving starts now, Kevin is filling the wood bin and baking pies today with my aunt. Found an early twentieth century copy of this and read it late into the night.

One Creative Thing: I chose the yarn and pattern for my sweater (yes as in for me to wear). It's yummy Malibrigo Chunky in the Paris Night colorway (thanks Ab for the suggestion). Pictures to follow.

One Good thing One Creative Thing ! 30 Days Day 1

Is anyone else sick of listening to me whine? So in an effort to repair the damage I have done to everyone's ear drums (or eyes as this is a blog) I am going to start posting good things again. I complain about not having time to make things yet I stay up late reading dumb things on line. So to try to change my general mood I am going to try to post one thing every day here about something creative and good that has happened in my day (exclusive to the holiday madness) so for the next 30 days this will be the one good thing one creative thing blog.

Today's one good thing is sending resume and letter for a great sounding job with Voc Rehab as an employment specialist. The one creative thing was basically finishing one sleeve of Alder's sweater (one cuff and one sleeve to go).

If you are feeling overwhelmed by everything right now feel free to join me in this activity. 

Take a look at this post by Julie for more thoughts on all the shifts of being in your thirties.

Making

There has been a lot of making going on around here lately. Alder has been drawing a lot and I've been knitting. Kevin even made a new comforter cover.


Chicken


Sweater


A favorite place to draw

I can't wait to start to start this hat and this one as well.

But now we're off on an sewing adventure, heading down to get fabric for curtains and well a little bit of temptations.

Another Knitted Project

This is my latest knitted project to be finished. It is a felted purse for my mother in law. She is a big fan of south west native american designs and thought that it mirrored them in my choices of colors. I put a webbing strap instead of a felted one since the last felted strap I made stretched out over time. It is all hand sewn so it is debatable how well it will hold up. I offered to resew it if there is any problems, luckily my father-in-law has an industrial sewing machine at the airport hanger.

While I was shaving the excess fuzz of of the bag my mother in law played with Alder. The scene was one that must have happened millions of times over thousands of years. It is important to keep these patterns alive today, we may live in a technological world but as animals we are still back in the agricultural age. Our lives and our internal needs do not mesh, but things like spending time with extended family and knitting fill part of this need.

A Mellow Day

Yawn... What a wonderfully mellow day. I like when Kevin finishes his exams. I slept in (8:30) then went to the knitting store to get help with a lost pattern and find a new one.

I am finally after ten years of knitting going to make myself a sweater. I figure this my be the only time ever knit one for myself that I spent over an hour choosing a pattern and yarn. I ended up in a wool alpaca mix that is very close to the one in the picture. I can't wait to start it but I have to finish Kevin's sweater first. He's sworn that he is going to keep wearing the same fugly orange acrylic thing his mother got him until his is done (we know what I am doing tonight).

Here is the pattern I chose (from Simply Shetland 2), click on the photo to see it larger.



After lunch we all went for a hike on the Homestead Trail that's up near Eldorado Canyon. This week is the best time to hike there as all the apple trees that are along the trail are in bloom. Even though we had a red air day on the front range the hike was fragrant. We stopped for not great burgers for dinner (not that we could afford it) but had a good time talking about life and watching Alder eat his fish, apple, and anything else we gave him.

Our hope is that once we get the business started we can have more days like this.