New Christmas Cards

It's that time again--not Christmas time, but getting-ready-for-Christmas time.  We're practicing the music in band and in choir, taking note of gift ideas, maybe thinking about greetings to send to loved ones.

Star Over the Stable Christmas Card
by Zevenster

To make it a little easier for you, I'd like to introduce my 2019 Christmas cards, available on Zazzle. Enjoy your preparations!

Handmade Gifts

We had a nice Christmas.  How about you?

 In spite of a power outage and an impulsive movie run, I finished these before the last minute.  They are jerseys for the boys' homemade game, Penguiness.  It's kind of a rough game to play in the living room, but they haven't broken anything for a while.

And I made sure I could differentiate the shirts in the laundry.

 I also made a few things to send away, like this watercolor portrait of my sister's cat,

 and coordinating monkey shirts for my other sister's little boys.  I used this pattern, and I liked it.

 

One of those little boys hasn't been born yet, but I know he'll need a blanket.  I made this with my boys' old jeans, and scraps from other projects.

The back is soft and gray, the border sunshine yellow.  I was looking for a rainbow-peeking-out-from-the-clouds effect.  What do you think?

 Some other babies have caught my attention, too.  I decided this little guy needed the Four Corners quilt I made a while ago.  I improvised a couple of  crocheted hats to go with it.

 

Some other friends actually had a girl, after three boys.  I don't know many baby girls, so I was excited to finally crochet the Eloise Baby Sweater.  I hope she enjoys wearing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

 This was fun, too.  I was invited to bring a prize to an '80s-themed bingo party.  After a brief brainstorm for topical ideas, I struck on a unicorn hat, with a rainbow mane.  I used this Sock Monkey Hat pattern for the white earflap hat, then added the ears, mane, and horn from the Unicorn Hoodie in Brenda K.B. Anderson's book Crochet Ever After.

 Even though the unicorn parts were meant for a child's hood, they fit just right on an adult's hat.  And I had all that yarn hanging around already, even the sparkly yellow for the horn.

At the party, I watched people open their wrapped prizes.  Most contained things like soap or candles, the dull things women give to each other when they don't know each other well.  I hoped fervently that whoever picked the hat would appreciate it.  She happened to be sitting next to me--a young horse enthusiast who doesn't remember the '80s, but loves unicorns.  She was so thrilled, it was contagious.  Crochet (and other crafts full of love) for the win!

Christmas Crochet

I had a great time crocheting some Christmas gifts last year.  These Sock Monkey hats were an obvious choice for my sister, her monkey-loving husband, and their little guy.  The pattern is by Sarah at Repeat Crafter Me.

It looks like they work as Snow Monkey hats, too!

I made this Gingerbread Cottage for my parents, using a pattern from Gourmet Crochet.

While the crocheting was pretty simple, mostly chains and single crochet stitches, affixing it to the frame was more of a challenge.  Have you ever tried to fit a sweater to a box?

It turned out well, anyway.  I especially love the roof and the round peppermints by the front door.

I made this afghan for my other sister.  It's a character from a favorite movie, Tonari no Totoro, which we first saw in Japan in the mid-eighties, with Dad translating.  That is still the best way to watch it.  Vae loves Totoro, and she's had some hard times, so I wanted the design to express this advice:

If Life gives you raindrops, jump up and down and grin like a Totoro!

I forgot to include that in the package, so I hope you're reading, Vae.

I hoped her furry friend would not feel threatened by the big eyes.  It looks like any threat has been neutralized.

I'll tell you more about the pattern another day.

What did you make for Christmas?

Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours!

Light the World

I love Christmas lights.  December days around here tend to be wet and dreary, and night falls all too soon.  But then the lights shine out, bringing hope and cheer.

The little electric lights are just a reminder, a dim imitation of the Light of the World, our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Just like them, we can imitate Him to bring more light into the dreary world around us.

Join me in trying to lift some burdens this month.  Here you can find ideas to get you started.  Then observe, serve, and share in the joy of Christmas!

Christmas Quilt for Valentine's Day

A few years ago, Grandma O and I visited a local quilt shop.  A beautiful sample quilt caught her eye.  I admired it, too.  She made inquiries, and went back to the shop later to buy the lovely Christmas-themed fabric and the pattern.  She was already ill at that time, and I wondered if she would be able to make the quilt.

I have to admit this project was one of the things I hoped to find in her sewing room when she'd left it behind.  And I did, neatly bagged up.  The block pattern is basically a disappearing nine-patch.  Grandma O had sewn the nine-patch blocks together, and cut more squares for the border.  A year after I brought the fabric home (about a year ago, in fact--I guess I do quilts in January and February), I sliced the blocks up, rearranged them, and made new blocks.

I added sashing and borders.  I found some wide material for the back, and sandwiched it all up.  I used the walking foot to quilt along the sashing, then tried free-motion quilting inside the blocks.

That was hard.  Even when sewing on the big dining room table, the weight of this queen-sized quilt was difficult to work with.  I tried to keep the quilting simple, but I didn't make my big loops very smooth.  I should have practiced more before diving into a big project, but I was excited to quilt this blanket.  After I quilted the blocks, though, I was tired.  I contemplated trying a holly leaf pattern on the border, but I had to think about it first.  I also had some cloth for the binding, but wasn't sure if I really liked it.  And then some other projects came up that were more urgent, important, or interesting.  I set the Christmas quilt aside, with the vague notion that I ought to finish it before the next Christmas.

That certainly didn't happen.  Last Saturday I pulled it out again.  I decided that straight lines in the ditches of the borders would be fine.  And that the fabric I already had would make a good binding.  And even though, to my dismay, I found that I'd missed quilting two of the blocks, I sat down and finished it all that day. 

Now it's ready to keep us warm next December.  Though it does look nice with my chicken-scratch heart pillowcases, doesn't it?

Crafty Gifts

Tiny gifts are the most fun to make.  My homemade Christmas gifts to my parents and our sisters were in jars this time--plum products I'd bottled in July.  It would have felt like cheating if the actual wrapping hadn't been such a challenge.  But a new member of the family needed some little crocheted things that I was happy to whip up.

For this tiny sweater, I used The Bailey Easy Top Down Sweater pattern.  It is a fun pattern, and very quick in the newborn size.  As I went along, I found that I preferred the zigzag look of the "wrong" side of the Herringbone Double Crochet stitch.  So I made it the right side of this little sweater, and put the buttons on the left shoulder instead of the right.

Here's LaBeq, trying it on for size, as baby TL was still on the way.  Her husband was enchanted with the little sweater.  It's so cute when guys get excited about baby clothes.  

TL has since made his debut.  He's a tiny little one, so maybe he'll fit the sweater for more than a day.

I also made him this Baby Owl Blanket, with a Polka Dot Border.  This is the first time I've used the Corner-to-Corner (C2C) method, and I enjoyed it.  I was able to use yarn I already had for everything but the background.  Some of the yarn was left over from this afghan I crocheted for the proud parents' wedding:

Oh, my goodness!  I never shared it here.  It's the Blue Lagoon Throw, and I had a great time crocheting it a few years ago.  

I also sewed some musical pajamas for Rollo,

embroidered a blue raven on a white shirt for the Caterpillar,

and appliquéd a kitten in a teacup for D2.  Kittens in teacups and other vessels appear surprisingly frequently in D2's and Rollo's drawings.  When I ran across this pattern in Grandma O's collection, I knew he'd love it.  And he does!

To Winter for Christmas

We headed south for Christmas, to where there is actually snow.  The white weather was somewhat frightful on the road there, and worse going back.  But while we stayed, the snow was beautiful.

It has been a long time since we've spent Christmas with our extended family.  I don't think there have ever been so many stockings hanging together in my parents' house.

Here are Dandelionslayer and the boys, with my sister Vae, in front of the tree on Christmas morning.

LaBeq came to pose with us in the afternoon. It was a lovely, relaxing day.

We also spent a couple of days with Dandelionslayer's family.  The boys had a great time sledding with their cousins.

The Caterpillar got his groove on, and won every dance.

We hit the slopes again, a little harder, in some cases, but the boys all survived their first time skiing.  D2, in the center of the picture, was the least afraid, and did really well.

We visited some dinosaurs, too,

and walked through the beautiful lights at Temple Square.

It was frigid, but our hearts were warm.

The Square is full of beautiful reminders of the Reason for the season.  Look at the leopard and the zebra lying down together, waiting for the Child to lead them.

We had a great time in snowy Utah.  I hope you enjoyed the holidays, too!

Christmas Musical Monday

Ah, sublime music from Plácido Domingo, the Piano Guys, and a choir of children who look like they are wearing cupcake wrappers.


Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Music on Wednesday

Oops.  Monday got past me.  But there's always time for some good music!


The latest from Lindsey Stirling.

Christmas Musical Monday

It's time to get the Christmas music season off to a roaring start!




The Sterling Singers describe it thus: "The world's happiest song meets the world's angriest."  Maybe it will be therapeutic to sing to yourself when you're feeling a bit of holiday stress.  I dare you to not laugh!

Christmas Crafted

I hope you had a merry, relaxing Christmas.  We did.  I had a hard time getting ready this year.  I didn't have much in the way of plans early on.  Once I had ideas, I also got distracted with a quite different project.  But I did craft a few gifts.

On the phone one day, my sister Vae said, out of the blue, "I need to get a door snake."  Once I oriented my mind to what she had said (Door?  Snake?), I thought I could do that.  So here's her snake, demonstrating its usefulness.

Thinking LaBeq's apartment could do with some draft prevention as well, I sewed her another snake.  They proved difficult to wrap, so I whipped up some bags with these Christmasy panels I'd found in Grandma O's stash.

I took breaks to crochet gifts for a baby shower (I used this pattern for the flower and this pattern for the booties) . . .

and a birthday party for a Pokemon fan.  I mostly used this pattern, but modified it for the chunky yarn I had on hand.

I machine-embroidered these towels for my mother,

and these washcloths to go to some friends with this jam.  I admit that I actually did think way ahead on the jam, but I did the cloths on the spur of the moment.

This, however, was my big project:  Knight Hoodies for all four boys.

Since I ordered the main fabric on a Black Friday sale, this endeavor included planning, waiting, and last-minute sewing.

This is the first time I've downloaded a PDF pattern.  Taping and tracing were just as tedious as I'd expected.  Of course, I would have traced a paper pattern, too, to make the different sizes. 

Other frustrations were more my fault.  I bought just enough fabric, and had to get creative to get all the pieces in.  The ancient laptop that displayed the instructions kept switching off, until I thought to remove the battery.  And there was too much time between measuring the boys and tracing and cutting--I started doubting that any of the jackets would fit.

But they all do.  And the boys love them!  So it doesn't matter that I didn't get the pajamas made, and hopefully no one minds that I didn't bake quite so many cookies this year.

My Christmas crafting was a success!