Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas presents.


This year for all the kids (my nieces and nephews), I made them washcloths. I also made Sophie and Arun their own bath bags. The washcloth patterns I sourced from Ravelry - except for the loveheart one that I made for Lucy, which I designed myself. I was going to make the the other two boys a bath bag each (different design using pure acrylic) but ran out of time, so they got some small store bought toys instead.












The Bags I made from my own pattern in my head. For the main body of the Bags, I dyed some natural coloured pure wool (that was given to me by my Mother In Law) with food colouring. I then crocheted it up and chucked it into the washing machine to full it and shrink it. that way, the mums can wash the bags without any worry. The patterns formed by the dyeing and crocheting process turned out great! The yellow bags top was crocheted with Acrylic and the Green bags top was crocheted with a cotton/acrylic blend that I picked up from Kmart for $1 per ball. Bargain!


Bne SnB Secret Santa Swap.

This year, on the 5th December, the Brisbane SnB (Stitch & Bitch) Group held a Xmas Secret Santa Swap party at the home of the lovely Tash.
Below is the gift I got from BubbleBee (aka Lauren). Isn't it wonderful? the knitted item is a little cap, and the yarn is Baby Alpaca. :-)

##Oops!! just found out that I got it wrong. I actually got this gift from TwistedKitten (aka Christine). Sorry Christine!! *blushes and runs to hide.....*## 29/12/09



Below is a piccy of the present I gave to my Swap partner Slipsthrufingers (aka Kathy). She is a keen "Ducky things" collector, so I made an Amigarumi duck (my first amigarumi toy) and a duck washcloth. Both patterns I got from Ravelry. The little things on the washcloth are stitch markers that my friend Naomi made. She made me a whole heap to give away and sell, so I thought Kathy would like a couple of sets. The yarn is hand spun cotton plied with an acrylic thread, that I picked up from the QSW&FA Christmas Fair. So pretty!

We had a wonderful day and much fun and merriment was had by all. I think more photos can be found on my flickr page (I am Sanity Is Yarn on flickr as well as Ravelry)




Thursday, December 03, 2009

Spinning Pretty

Goodness, December already!! So much for trying to post more often, but November sucked pretty badly, so you don't want to hear about that. But things are a bit better this week - Good friends, my Dad coming home from England tonight, christmas is in the air, school is just about over (thank god - I'm ready for Rory to be on holidays!) and I've been very productive.

Last night a dear friend gave me an early Christmas present - Look what I got!

(sorry for the blurry photo!) I believe it is First Editions Sliver. Don't know what the name of the colourway is, but it's very pretty and extremely bright.
I was very keen to see what it looked like spun up, so this morning I got on my wheel and started spinning - so far I've done one bobbin of singles:


PRETTY!!!!

The colours do get a little muddied by the spinning process, but they are still really good. It actually tones it down a bit so it might be a little more wearable anyway. I am thinking about making a "jane hat" (one of those beanies with ear flaps) out of it and a neckwarmer if I have enough too. That will be really cool!

Over the last couple of weeks I have been madly knitting and crocheting ready for Christmas. I decided to give all my nieces and nephews something knitted this year - photos will be posted after the various christmas gatherings so that the receivers don't see it beforehand. ;) More needs to be made anyway.

I have also been working on a couple of small gifts for my secret santa swappee in the Brisbane Stitch N Bitch Christmas Swap. The party is on Saturday afternoon, so again, I'll post pics of what I made and who it was for etc, after that.

If I have time, I am also thinking of crocheting some some small christmas tree decorations for not only our tree but for my families trees. If I don't get them done by this Christmas though, it is no matter, I'll just do a few during the year ready for next christmas.

so many projects... so little time..... *sigh*