Starting Fresh...or at least somewhat fresh

Well, BACK AGAIN!!! 2011 means a whole new year and hopefully one filled with knitting and other crafts that I have come to enjoy. Since the day my daughter was born, I have dreamed of having just four more hours in the day. I thought about renaming this blog, but decided against it. There are too many memories!
I think what I really need is to just stop thinking about it and start blogging again. It was a time I so enjoyed!
There is so much to catch you all up on in lives of Baby C and Baby G and in my crafting adventures! Honestly, this post was all sparked by the creation of my new "crafting corner"! B was away all week on business in L.A. and my parents were visiting. This tends to equal...big projects being done on the house. I decided to reclaim a corner of the basement studio and put all of my crafts there. I am super happy with how it turned out, though there is still a lot to do! Specifically, I need a way to organize all of my knitting needles. I just ordered the circular needle case made by Namaste. And I plan on making dpn cases showcased in Hugs for Your Head with colored cardstock and hanging them from a string under my knitting space...

All right, now on to projects I have been working on. There have been many! Most recently I finished The Gap-tastic cowl (a ravelry free pattern) for my sister-in-law. I ended up using an acrylic yarn (I know, I know...) that was super soft and comfy. The cowl was knit in the round and the pattern called for 15 inches of width. I ended up only doing 8 or so inches and it was perfect for what I wanted! Here is a picture...

Of course as always, my intention was to make most of my Christmas presents, but I never get as much done as I hoped...maybe this year;) I did get around to making all of C's teacher gifts (3). I made these super cute mason jars filled with Gingerbread Scone ingredients.

This packaged with homemade packs of thank you cards turned out to be perfect! I hope they enjoyed them...

Next, I have entered into the world of sewing. My mom is a phenomenal quilter and sewer. She is so talented and full of ideas. I figured I better learn while the best is still teaching! She is so patient with me who has no idea where to start...I even inherited her old Singer sewing machine and some supplies too. So, nothing was more fitting than to sew her something for Christmas. I picked up a pattern at JoAnn's before the holidays and got working on a wall hanging that has picture slots. Here is the almost finished project:

She loved it!! The only catch was that she has to help me finish it. I need to learn how to do the binding and backing of it. Then we are going to quilt it.

Next comes the sunflower dress. C decided to, at the last minute, throw onto her Christmas list, a sunflower dress. It ended up being top 3 when sitting on Santa's lap. Well...you try finding either a sunflower dress in December or wearable sunflower fabric. It was HARD. Finally, I came across some beautiful pink sunflower fabric that was just C's style at my local quilt shop, Generations. I went straight to Etsy to find my pattern and then started. Here it is:


Continuing on with the list (and I promise, this is not how I intended this post)...a fun picture of C and G feeding the ducks in New Hope with B on New Year's Day. Those are their yearly winter hats.
The strawberry hat is a free ravelry download by Pony Knowles, but modified for a child and minus the bob at the top. I used KnitPicks Swish worsted. The dinosaur hat is a pattern by Kate Oates called Roar also using Swish worsted.

So I am going to end this post for now. I will post pictures of my "craft corner" later as I am sure you are all pictured out at this moment! For today... I am off to work on those dpn holders! Super exciting. Then I need to buckle down and choose my next knitting project (or maybe finish one I have already started).