Little Pretties

Mom made it for me! It was a Christmas gift fashioned from her formerly favorite sweater, and now it's keeping my mug cozy. That's pretty great when you're obliged to abandon your cuppa joe to fish a tissue out of E's mouth or to "hep, Mama" with a Franny craft of some sort.
Anyway, I'm adding this b/c I thought it was a fantastic idea. Namely, it was my idea! Ha, that's right, my creative mother took a cue from me. The thing is, the way she executed it was waaaay better than I had thought in my head. Though it was a quick make, mine would've probably been more,well, slapped together. Mother, on the other hand, lined hers. Also, there is a bead detail added at the top. She always knows how to top me.
I have to keep it in mind, b/c lining is such a simple touch, but makes everything oh, so nice. The hot water bottle covers would totally have been great lined. Sigh. Oh mother...

Labels: felt, gift, sewing

Margarita--I swear she has a knitting machine stashed somewhere in that Queens apartment of hers. Anyway, a little package arrived for the girls for Christmas and in it was this totally cute scarf. It's a little sheep to keep Franny's neck warm. I just love the button eyes and the wool is ever-so-soft as well. Such a great kid gift. I love handmade stuff!

This is our little model showing off her gums along with the beautiful capelet Maragrita knitted for her. She looks like she's really enjoying it! I was reallly touched to get such a beautiful, hand-made gift for little Ellie when we came visiting to New York in October (yes, that was a long time ago. Yes, I'm just posting about it now. Er hmm)
It must've taken her hours! She mentioned that she made it while she was away in Spain. Colors inspired by the Alhambra. Anyway, only a fellow knitter understands--that means love!

Isn't it lovely? I'm really impressed with the fair-isle design--which is something that I haven't tried yet. Following the charts are not so easy for me, but this is so cool that I may be inspired to bite the bullet (and clench my buttocks) to try. So cute!

Aren't these cute? I downloaded these sweet decorations and Frances and I colored them up and dressed them, too. After we discovered this size, we found some mini ones, too that we cuted-up and hung, too. Some we gave away on the gifts, too. People seemed to like that. I'll def. want to make more next year. I have them printed out and am planning on putting them into the Chrismas decor box so that I'll remember. I love Kiddley!

Here's the little boy.

Here's our little tree in all its minuscule glory. We had to go small/table top style this year because of a certain handsy 9 month old who shall remain nameless. I loved our tree this year even though she's so modest. She's ours and we loved her. And although it's January now, I still don't want to take it down. Not just because I don't want to physically have to dismantle it, either.

A close-up of our happy garlands. I preferred the tinier ones better, but there weren't so many of those in the variety pack I bought. The two-year old, liked stringing the big pom-poms better. I like the effect and think I will hang them around long after our little tree is taken down.

So, here is my Christmas craft. I thought this idea was just so nifty! You may be wondering what it is. Well, I'll tell you. It's a very comfy, very cozy Personalized Hot Water Bottle Cover with Hot Water Bottle included. Every gal needs one. Who, in fact, can be without one? What does a girl need to soothe a cramp? Give comfort when needed? Warm a wintry bed? The answer of course, is a Hot Water Bottle--and it helps if there's a personalized cover, too! Again, recycled sweaters were called upon to help and a little bit of needle felting and, voila! I made on for my beloved aunt Kat, too. The recipients seemed to be baffled, yet pleased. Exaclty the results I was going for. Sure, a little explanation was needed. Steady stearing away from any sort of "enema" bag thoughts, yes, 'tis true. But once the light bulb was turned on, it seemed to bring a favorable response. I have a hand-knittled one on the needles right now for mother (the one you see here is for Mother-in-Law). There are some fussy cables involved, so unfortunatley, the Dec. 25th deadline wasn't met. But, fortunatley, she's a crafty type and understands about giving WIPs. All in all, I'm pleased with the results--the only regret is that now that I've given them, I wish I had lined them. More on that later....

I'm really in a bird-mood this Chrimma. I love them. This one is for Kathryn ("BFF"). She said she liked it. She sounded sincere.

Here are the slippers I made for Baby 'Nell. It's not a very fantastic picture, but it's really hard to photograph the feet of a perpetual motion-machine. I used a recycled sweater like I did for Baby Isaac and just embroidered on them. I just did the design out of my head, but this Jenny Hart book is totally inspirational, too. I got one for my BFF, and one for myself for good measure.

My quest for lime-green shoes has finally come to an end. Santa knows my size!

So, lots of baking ensued. We made sugar cookies, date-nut pinwheels and caramel corn. Whew! And Frances helped me every step. We were blarring the Christmas music and got the floor sufficiently floured up. I have to admit, up to this point, I hadn't really been gettin' the Chrismas spirit. Making cookies with Franny really got me there. Who can deny the powere of the sprinkles?

Notice the lack of crimson. Yeah, that ones a favorite around here for all kinds of crafting. Thusly, a very "cool tones" Christmas cookie pallette.

One of our first acts of giving this season was to give our aviary friends a little morsel. Even though we have not a speck of snow on the ground, and there's probably lots of sustenence out there (in fact just a few days ago i saw some juicy worms out there. Shouldn't worms be hibernating this time of year? hmm...) Anyway, it's always nice to get, like a meat and cheese sampler this year. So, here's the bird-version. Peanut butter and birdseed pinecones. Hung delectably off our balcony. These things were picked dry in about 1 day. It was a rush of excitement watching the birds gathering and gossiping so close to us. Then, when the pincones were clean, we didn't see our fair-weather (feathered) friends again. Then again, we should've really kept giving them something to eat. It's actually not so nice to just withhold llike that. But what can we say? Other things caught our fancies. So, I guess we have the attention span of birds, too. Sorry, charlies.

Carefully applying the peanutty goodness...

Do you remeber doing this in elementary school? Well, I decided that we couldn't possible wait until 1st grade to make these fun decorations. I mean, can you ever have enough glittered and glammed up pinecones? You see, our apt. complex has TONS of fir trees and so MANY unsuspecting pinecones just lying around BEGGING to be made-over! At least that's how Franny and I saw it!

And a close-up.