Weekend Craftiness

I mentioned on Monday that I was grumpy last weekend. Sometimes lack of sleep gets to me. Here are the crafts I did to get me out of my funk.

I painted. This is the background. I'm going to be adding more onto it - a yarned twig and some knitted creatures. If it turns out the way I want it to, it will be a Christmas present.

I had got out too much green paint so I got out some paper and did a tree painting. 

Sorry about the white line and reflection. I couldn't find anywhere in the house that didn't cause a reflection in the glass. I didn't notice the white line at the bottom until I loaded it onto the blog.

It turned out better than I thought so I trimmed it and put it in a frame. Not sure if I'm going to keep it or gift it. I'd like to make more tree paintings. It was fun and I have a thing for trees.

I finished hollowing out the four books I had prepped and did the final step of putting mod podge around the outside edges and inside edges. They turned out okay and I think I'm going to do more.

I started crocheting a robot for the Little Guy.

Worked on the Akron cowl.

And the Mystery KAL shawl. I finished the first clue and am half way done the second. Last clue comes out on Friday. It will look a lot better blocked.

My hollowed book with some pens.

Today I'm busy getting stuff ready so I can enjoy Friday Night Sew-In tomorrow night.

Making progress

I missed writing an October round-up or what my goals are for November, although I think last week's post about all my knitting projects kind of counts. I've been making progress on lots of things the past few weeks which included piecing a quilt top that's a gift and can't be shown here. You'll just have to trust me that I did it.

I ironed this stack of fabric and made 3 quilt backs. One for the surprise quilt, mentioned above (it's roughly twin size). I also made backs for the advent quilt and the Made-in-Cherry quilt. That was a lot of work but glad to have it done.

I finally wrapped these twigs that had been sitting on my desk for months. The little ones will probably end up as gifts. The bigger one is supposed to be for me, but I might gift it too. We'll see. They are already attached to the canvas. Just need to knit the little critters that sit on the branches.

The advent quilt. Ironed and cut all the white strips and got half of them sewn on. I set this aside to finish the surprise quilt which needed to get finished. 

I moved the books to be hollowed out to the kitchen so I can work on them whenever I have a spare minute while cooking. The counter is higher than my desk so I prefer working on them here anyway.

I should have some finishes to share later this week. Blocked the finished Savanna shawl this morning. Had to use pins so it is drying in my daughter's room, away from the toddler. 

Hollow Books

I worked on some holiday gifts this week as part of my October goals.

I took the plunge and started hollowing out some books. I picked four which included my test book. I followed this tutorial, except for drilling the corners. After finishing one book, I decided that drilling the corners is actually a great idea and did it to the remaining three. I didn't drill the first book partly because both my sick husband and toddler were sleeping while I was doing this and I would have had to dig around for the drill and bits. I also wanted to see if that step was really necessary and now I think it is. I did hollow the book without drilling the corners but it would have been easier with a cleaner look if they had been drilled. 

Here are the books after I mod podged the pages together. The pages and front cover that I don't want glued down are wrapped in saran wrap. The pop cases were the heaviest things I had to cover all four books.

Here is my test book about halfway through the carving. I wish I had a better knife and if this was something I was going to do a lot I'd invest in a quality one. I bought a cheaper one at Michael's that came with several replacement blades.

Both outside corners separated. I am hoping the drilled books won't have this trouble as I won't be tugging at them as much. I think this will be a great gift for kids because who doesn't like to hide stuff from their parents? When I glue the next batch of books one thing I will do differently is look to see if there is a page I want to stop carving at. With the first four I didn't check how many pages there were or if there was a page I wanted to leave uncarved to be the bottom. I think I am done cutting pages from the test book but I still need to glue the edges, both inside and out, and clean up the inside edges so no final pictures yet.