Finished Pairs of Knitted Socks #1 and 2 of 2016

  Long time no blog. But for good reason. A week ago Wednesday, I hurt my back and spent the next 6 days on the couch in pain. Last Friday, I was at urgent care having x-rays done and some strong pain meds prescribed, which was the best thing my husband has ever forced me to do. I guess helping your wife pull up her pants while she cries in pain isn't very sexy. Anyway, I'm doing better now. Haven't had to take any pain meds for a couple days but am still struggling with some things - leaning over to take food in and out of the oven still hurts, but I'm getting there. I started a new board on pinterest called, For My Achin' Back, where I'll be pinning exercises to help my back get stronger, hoping I don't ever repeat this injury. 

     I have been finishing things. I finished the socks for my SIL the day before I hurt my back. And I was able to finish the Creeper afghan for my son's birthday last Saturday. I also finished the cat scarf for my daughter and this morning I finished a second pair of socks. Guess I have been busy.

Here are the socks for my SIL. I didn't get them done in time for Christmas. My plans are to mail them next week if weather and back cooperate. 

These are super comfy. Hope she enjoys them. Yarn is Cascade Heritage Sock.

And here are the socks I finished for myself this morning. I made the first sock last year and then got distracted with gift knitting. Cast the second sock on Saturday and wove in a lot of ends today. 

Lots of stripes! These are surprisingly comfortable, even with all those woven in ends. 

I still need to do a proper photo shoot for the Creeper afghan but here's the birthday boy using it on his birthday while playing video games.

I still have several WIP's I need to finish but the yarn above and this pattern are really tempting me.

Oh, and I finally joined Instagram. You can find me, @rachel.s.brown

Lots of Finishes for Friday

I have several gifts I finished for Christmas that never got shared here, plus a few little finishes since the holidays. Today's post is what I've finished in the last month.

Floyd in his sweater the day I finished it, which according to ravelry was December 17th. He loved it and didn't want to take it off. Since then he has refused to wear it. Silly boy. Not sure about the neckline. I might try to alter it.

Here was the inside of the sweater before I weaved in all those ends.

The neck looks okay when lying flat but just stretches weird once he is wearing it.

Looks good from the back though.

I finished the third quilt for my mom as well. This one ended up being my favourite due to the quilting. My mom liked it so much she used it on her bed instead of the guest bed where it was intended to go.

You can see a bit of the quilting here. I used transparent thread on the top. I free-handed everything with my free-motion quilting foot. There are spirals in every corner, then loops between the spirals. Finally I free-motioned the Santa fabric.

This picture of the back really shows off the quilting. It was definitely worth the time.

Sneaked a picture of a niece wearing the Flax sweater I made her for Christmas. I made a purple one for her sister and a grey one for her brother. I finished the grey one on Christmas day (we didn't exchange gifts with them until the 27th) but didn't get a picture of the finished sweater. Perhaps you can get one for me, Michelle?

Another sneaky photo of a nephew wearing his Minecraft Creeper hat.

I finished the Pleasantville cowl for myself on December 29th. We were suppose to drive home on the 29th but we stayed an extra day when a foot of snow fell and made driving a little difficult. Above is the cowl before blocking.

And here it is after. I had been afraid I would run out of yarn but I think I ended up with enough left that I could have done an extra pattern repeat.

But I'm happy with the size it is now so I'll have to find something else to do with the bit I have leftover.

Made my son, Nova, a Minecraft Creeper hat this Monday. He wears it ALL the time.

And made some food for Floyd. A waffle and strawberries were made using this free pattern. Cucumbers are just simple crocheted circles. And the ramen noodles in the back? Made by frogging this shirt I knit last year but I never wore because I didn't like how it sat on me. 

I've also read 6 books this year and have over 80 granny squares done for the Creeper afghan. I guess it's not much of a surprise I haven't edited a thing. Maybe next week.

Have you finished anything yet this year?

A Sneak Peek and a Finish

Coming up from Gift-Making Cave to do a quick blog post. My daily to-do lists are crazy. There is so much to do but it will be over soon and then I can knit things for me and spend days reading. January will be great. I'm not really complaining about making gifts. I do enjoy it and I'm still hopeful that I'll get the main gifts made. I've started to cross off the little extra gifts I wanted to make off my list as I accept the reality of the time I actually have before Christmas. We are opening here Saturday morning so the priority this week has been my gifts for the kids and wrapping presents. I'm almost done Floyd's sweater and hope to have pictures of a finished sweater tomorrow. Here's a bit of what I've been working on this week.

I finally decided how to quilt the last quilt for my mom. You can see the quilt top here, and if the weather improves, I'll have pictures of the finished quilt to share tomorrow. Above is the back of the quilt. I kind of love it. A little different than my usual free-motion but all quilting was done with my free-motion foot. I think my mom will love it.

What the?

I had planned on knitting my older son, Nova a sweater for Christmas. Knitting each of my kids a sweater for Christmas was a tradition I started for Floyd's first Christmas 3 years ago. However, Nova never wears the sweaters I make him. I decided not to make him a sweater this year - I could use my time better - but I still wanted to make him something. I thought of crocheting him an afghan as he likes having lots of blankets on his bed but I didn't really have the time for that (maybe for his birthday next month?). Anyway, last week on someone else's blog (sorry, can't remember who), I saw she was making pajama monsters for her kids and I thought that was a great idea. I didn't want to pay $5 for the pattern she was using so I decided to wing it.

Here it is. Not perfect but good enough to hold pajamas. His room is so messy and he just throws his pajamas on the floor every morning. Maybe this will help?

The back is a fat quarter from the stash. Rough measurement is 16 x 18. A bit big but I didn't want putting the pajamas in to be a struggle, or he wouldn't use it.

Pajamas on the floor.

Pajamas being stuffed into the Pajama Monster.

Sitting on the bed with a full tummy.

I'm trying to think of a funny saying or little poem to go with it.

Now, I have to get back to knitting. I'm halfway done the second sleeve of Floyd's sweater. Then I have a kazillion ends to weave in (only a slight exaggeration). Oh, and there's the sweater for my nephew and the socks for my SIL. And another quilt I'd like to finish but I haven't started sewing yet. At least all the fabric is cut. The next few days should be fun. I'm sure my family won't mind if I sleep through Christmas.

Little Finishes for Friday

I've been making such good progress on my gift knitting this week that I'm forcing myself to put down the needles and share some of the little finishes I've had this past week.

A Minecraft hat for a nephew. This was the only request I had this year for something knitted. I made one for my nephew a few years ago and he's asked for a second one. I think I originally made it for his father but my nephew took it. Used this free pattern.

Got my son to try it on saying I wouldn't post his picture. He agreed I could post it since I didn't show his face.

My next finish happened so quickly that I haven't shared any progress pictures here. I started it last Thursday evening and by Friday morning I had 4 limbs.

Over the weekend I finished a tail, 2 ears and a nose I decided not to use. And started the body - not shown.

Monday afternoon I finished Aiko, the Ninja Cat. Made for one of my niece's who takes Kung Fu lessons. She can rename it. If I'm able, I'd like to get the different colour belts made for Christmas too - not part of the pattern, just something I wanted to do.

I tried to get Floyd to hold it still to show how big it is. But it's a ninja, and ninja cats don't stay still. Or so I was told.

I put her to work guarding our house.

Floyd helped me with another finish last week. I tried two different recipes to make birdseed shapes. The first one was this recipe. The difference between this one and the other recipe I tried is that the unflavored gelatin isn't activated with boiling water so the recipe has corn syrup and flour in it. But with no boiling water, this was toddler friendly. 

He liked putting the straw pieces in to make the string hole.

And here is my tray of crap, as I came to think of it. This recipe gets a thumbs down. Partly my fault for using cookie cutters that had small, thin parts but even the bigger ones fell apart. Only a few turned out.

I laid in bed that night trying to think how I could make better molds and remembered the donut tray my mother gave me for Christmas last year. Hey mom, I finally found a use for it.

So I used the second recipe, found here. Only alteration was adding 3 cups of birdseed instead of 2 since there was a lot of liquid left. I filled the molds in myself this time but my older kids could have helped but I think they were busy.

I let them dry overnight in the mold before flipping them over. They all popped out perfect.

I doubled up some of the birdseed donuts on the string. Only had 4 from the first batch that were good enough and we kept 2 of them. Every time you pick one up, birdseed falls off so I don't think they will travel well. I put the birdseed donuts we are gifting in ziplock baggies to prevent making a mess under the tree. I think I'm going to make another batch of the birdseed donuts so there is enough to give aunts and uncles. The ones above are going to grandparents.

One from the first recipe hanging outside.

Birdseed donuts.

And one last little finish. I saw this on pinterest last December but it was too late for me to start collecting yarn bits. I saved all my yarn ends this year and....

... had enough to fill 4 suet feeders. These three are gifts. The fourth we are keeping.

I really hope the birds take some of the yarn to make their nests when we put it back outside in the spring.

Lots of little finishes done. Now I'm left with sweater knitting and quilting quilts. 

Have you been making gifts that aren't knit, crocheted or quilted? It feels like my pinterest boards are finally being of some use this Christmas.

Quilt WIP's

Yesterday's post was all about my knitting WIP's. Today's is all about the quilt WIP's. I don't quilt as much as I used to but I have a lot of quilty projects this year for Christmas. 

My first WIP is for us to keep. During last year's after Christmas sales I picked up some buttons that looked like carrots and black buttons planning to make a snowman quilt. Of course I waited until this December to start it. Since the quilt isn't really Christmasy, I'll be able to keep it up for January and February. Above is the quilt top. Each block is 6 inches finished. I made the white centers different sizes based on the variety of carrot buttons.

I'm quilting all the white with mini snowballs. And it's taking forever. 

Have 5 of 20 blocks done. 

I laid the buttons on top of the quilted blocks. Looks okay but still needs something.

Better. I'll have to buy more little buttons to give the big blocks smiles. I don't know yet about the little blocks. That's a lot of buttons. It would be nice to have the quilting done before going out of town for the holidays. I could bring it with me and put on buttons while hanging out with family but I don't think that's going to happen.

I finished the third quilt top for my mom on Sunday. You can see the first quilt here. And the second quilt here. I admit I didn't really like this fabric when my mom picked it out but I like it now. I fussy cut 30, 9.5" squares for the middles. The red and green stripes are 2.5" wide, giving me 13.5" blocks. And very little fabric left over.

Made for a double/full bed but not meant to be tucked in. Just an extra blanket. This quilt is for a guest bed at my parents house. I pieced the back and batting yesterday. Just need to baste and I can start quilting. Although I'm not sure how I want to quilt it or what colour thread. Any ideas?

Here it is lying on our double bed. Just goes over the sides. Hope you like it mom.

And I have a finish to share, too. I started this quilt 4 years ago. It's so nice to have it finished. Fabric is Kate Spain's Terrain - which I still love. 

On our bed. Goes over each side and has enough length to be tucked it.

I did free-motion stippling over the whole thing. 

The back. When I made the quilt top in 2011, it was suppose to be for us to keep. Then I thought of giving it to a niece earlier this year before I settled on giving it to my SIL, Michelle, for Christmas. She gifted my two older kids with quilts last year and I think she deserves it. I admit I was in a hurry quilting this and thought I had done an okay job in basting and holding the quilt taunt while quilting until I looked at the back when it was done.

And saw this.

And this.

And this. I was disappointed and sad. I don't feel like I can give this as a gift anymore. I still love it and might keep it. Or I'll donate it. Or maybe I will end up giving it as a gift. I'm unsure. I still need to wash it. Maybe that will help the puckers look less obvious?

I do love the bright yellow I used for the binding.

What quilty projects are you trying to finish up for Christmas?

Linking up at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.