More baby things

Well, just one more thing, I guess. I've decided that the best way to use up some of my stash yarn is to knit baby sweaters. I have so many kinds of yarn that I only have one or two skeins of and that is not enough for much of anything. I knit up this sweater (in action on its new owner). It's Hoodie #60554A (it's like a prison number --maybe I've been watching too much of The Wire lately...) from Lion Brand. I used some of my scrap Patons wool. It took about a week to knit, although the striping was very annoying. I had a lot of loose ends to weave in before I decided to just carry the yarn. It was a quick, fun pattern to knit though.

A birthday present

I went to a 1st birthday party this weekend and, like all the gifts I give this little guy, I made the birthday boy something handmade. My gift is probably a little too old for him right now, but it never hurts to give fun, educational toys.

I made felt letters. I just made the upper-case alphabet for now, but have plans on making lower-case letters and numbers eventually. I made a template for all the letters, cut out felt, blanket stitched, and stuffed all the letters. I started this at the beginning of January, thinking I'd make one letter a day, but it actually went faster than I thought it would.

I made a bag from scrap fabric (using up my stash!) to hold
all the letters, with plenty of room for additional letters as I make them. I pretty much followed the instructions from happythings to make the bag. I made mine much bigger than the tutorial though and it still worked out great.

All bundled up!

A Scarf for the New Year

Per my goals, I've started going through my yarn and assigning projects. I love the yarn search on Ravelry --it lets me browse projects and see how the yarn turns out for different people. I had some fine Red Heart yarn that was an impulse purchase. I love the colorway, but I didn't know what to do with it. I finally found a great scarf pattern: The Dropped Stitch Scarf from Frazzled Knits. I really like how it turned out. My grandma loves handmade gifts and her birthday is coming up next month, so I think I have the perfect gift!

A Year in Preview

My truncated goals from last year:
Post more often
Don't buy excess yarn
Organize yarn projects/work on Ravelry
Sew more
Try embroidery

I was able to work on a couple of these items. I did stop buying excess yarn and I did start to sew more. I get a BIG fail for posting more often though and while I've been using Ravelry more, I haven't really uploaded my own projects. And embroidery? Not so much.

So, my 2009 goals are pretty much my goals from 2008. I think I'll focus on working through my yarn and using Ravelry more. I have projects that are in the back of my mind and I need to really tackle them, along with projects from last year that I've put on the back-burner.

One thing I'm borrowing from Little Lugs is making more handmade presents. I am really inspired by all her hard work and hope to make even more gifts for others this year. I'm not very artistically enabled so when I can create something that I like, I need to remind myself to keep it up!

And I'm moving in August, so I might just get that Room of My Own!

Front burner & back burner

There's still one holiday gift I have to finish - I started it on a bit of a whim, but I'm determined to finish this month. It's the cotton throw blanket on the left, and I'm not going to work on anything else while I'm at home, until it's finished. I was going to take it on my holiday plane trips but it was already too bulky to be comfortably portable, so I started a pair of knee socks for myself instead - a much better traveling project. These will stay on the back burner, relegated to subway and lunch-hour knitting, until the blanket (and a batch of charity hats) is finally done.

A Year in review

I really fell off the blogging bandwagon this past fall, but school is now done and I can concentrate fully on crafting and blogging. I thought I'd start with a mosaic of my finished objects in 2008. I made quite a few things for my nephew! Despite my hectic final semester, I managed to create a couple handmade gifts as well.

There were several things I created at the end of the year that I never blogged about. One was a sweater for my cousin. I had her name for the family gift exchange. And inexplicably, I forgot to document it! I decided to make Flint Knit's February Lady Sweater. I used Cascade 220 for the yarn. It knit so fast and I think it turned out really well. I want to make one for myself now.

Other items I made for various gifting needs were: a toy alpaca, a felted rug, a lunch sack, and a reusable Target bag. I fused Target bags together and tried to recreate the real bag Target advertised earlier in the year. Stay tuned for my 2009 goals!

Hello 2009

Happy New Year!

This is what I wrote last year around this time:

With regard to knitting in particular, I have begun to develop a list of specific project goals and sketch out a timeline for getting them done. I've resolved to buy no new yarn or clothes for 6 months in an effort not only to economize but also to focus on working with the materials I already have to create new clothes (or refashion old ones). And charity knitting is still a goal, both with the group at work and on my own.

My crafting goals for last year were a bit vague, it's true. Having a project list, and starting a separate blog to track gift-making, really improved my crafting productivity and helped me achieve my goal of giving more handmade gifts. A couple of times I broke my resolution to give up yarn and clothes buying for six months, but the offending acts were pretty minor and once the deadline passed, I continued to exercise considerably more restraint in these areas than I've shown in the past. And I did participate in two charity crafting projects through work, in addition to doing one project on my own. I had planned a second solo project for 2008 but it's not done - I'm aiming to finish this month and send a box of knit hats to a local shelter.

So...2009. I want to make a quilt with the old clothes I've been saving. I want to continue crafting for charity - 2 solo projects. I want to knit a sweater for myself. And I want to improve on my handmade gift-giving - start planning earlier, and diversify by learning a new craft. Sounds do-able, right?