This past week we put up our Christmas tree and the boys were so excited. One problem, however, is that Matthew likes to take the ornaments off of the tree to play with them. Gabriel had some of his beaded candy canes on the tree and so Gabriel likes to take those off. Therefore, I decided that I better make something that is not so breakable, especially since Matthew keeps reaching for the antique ornaments. I found a pattern for felt flower ornatments in the Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 12 so I decided to make some.

I made the ornaments myself because my boys were a bit young for this project but I would think that older kids would be able to make these. I thought that I would make some for the boys and we could put the felt ornaments on either our tree or maybe buy a little tabletop tree. I am going to have them make some more candy cane bead ornaments too along with some felt garland. I will post the felt garland project when we make it. This way they will have their own tree and ornaments that they can take on and off and rearrange however they would like. Maybe we will even put it by the fireplace and leave Santa’s cookies and milk under it.

When I made the flowers I cut strips of felt 1″x5″ out of seven different colors of felt. I cut out two circles that were approximately 1 1/2 inches each and one circle that was approximately 2 1/2 inches. I used pinking shears to cut out the circle. I cut enough felt for 18 ornaments. Each ornament used seven strips of felt, one large circle and two smaller circles. I used some cotton yarn for the ornament hanger.

Prior to gluing everything together I laid out all seven strips of felt around the outside of the larger circle so that I could space them out properly. I then placed a strip of glue from the center of the circle up to the edge of the circle and placed the bottom portion of the felt strip on it.

I proceeded to do that for all seven felt strips. While I was gluing I found it best not to place the bottom of every strip in the center of the circle as it got too thick. It was best to overlay the strips so that they were not completely on top of one another but just met in the center of the circle. That way the center was not so thick.

Once all of the felt strips were glued I then glued one of the smaller circles right on top of the felt strips in the center of the circle.

Once I glued on the center circle I flipped the ornament over and repeated the process on the back of the circle. This time when I glued the felt strips down they made a large loop when they folded in half since the other side was already glued down.

Once I finished gluing the felt strips to the back of the circle I cut a piece of yarn and also glued it onto the back of the circle. I folded it in half to form a loop and then put some glue on the back of the circle and placed the ends of the yarn on top of it. I used a toothpick to help push the yarn into the glue so that the yarn and glue didn’t stick to my fingers. I then glued the second smaller circle onto the back in the same manner that I had glued the other small circle on the front.

Once I finished the back I flipped the ornament back over and glued a button onto the center of the smaller circle. The pattern that I was using said to felt some wool roving into a ball, cut it in half and place half of the ball on the front of the ornament. It looked nice but I didn’t have any roving so I thought that the button would look just as nice.

As I finished each ornament I laid it out on a piece of wax paper to dry overnight.

Now that the ornaments are all done and dry I just have to decide what we are going to do with them. I think that I will more than likely find a little tree that we can hang them on and place it next to the fireplace. That ways the boys can reach it and will be able to rearrange the ornaments as they would like as well as place cookies and milk for Santa under the tree too..

I finally completed my first fleece robe for the boys! I had started with Matthew’s robe and it is now all done. The pattern, Butterick #B4635, was a fairly simple pattern. It is part of Butterick’s See & Sew pattern line.

It was pretty easy because there were long sections of stitching and not really any tiny work. There also was not a lot of pieces to the pattern.

Overall, I am happy with how the robe turned out. The front band needed to be slip-stitched to the inside of the robe but I decided to machine stitch it instead. I pinned the front band into the robe and covered the seam with it then stitched the front. Of course I was not right on with it and did not catch the entire back of the front band so I will now go back and slip-stitch those sections. In hindsight, I think when I make Gabriel’s robe I will pin the front band inside the robe again but then machine baste it in place and then topstitch along the basting. I think that will work better.

Aside from that one issue, I am happy with how the robe turned out. I think that Matthew will really like it. I bought him a monkey pattern because he really likes monkeys so he should be excited about it on Christmas. I made it one size larger so that he could grow into it and have it for a couple of winters but I think that it’s going to be pretty roomy on him this year…I wonder if he might even get 3 winters out of it!

It’s Black Friday and the rush is now on for me to finish making the Christmas gifts that I was planning on making. I am no farther with my Step-Father’s scarf and I still have to make the Christmas themed no-sew fleece blankets for the boys but at least I have the fleece purchased already. I finally made some time today to at least start on the fleece robes that I’m making for the boys.

I had already cut out the fabric for Matthew’s robe so I started on his. I am using a Butterick See & Sew pattern, number B4635. I was very happy to see that it is pretty easy to do.

The weather was real nice today so Tom took the boys outside with him while he was taking down the Fall decorations. They helped him start to put up some of the Christmas decorations too. I figured that this would give me the opportunity to work on Matthew’s robe, uniterrupted. I was wrong. Every ten minutes or so one of the boys would come in for a drink or a potty break or to find a toy or to just check on me. Needless to say, I didn’t get as far on the robe as I had planned. The part of the robe that I did finish I was happy with how it turned out.

I started with the pockets. They were actually simple to do but I had never made them like this before so of course there were a couple of errors that I had to rip out. This is my first experience with ripping out stitches on fleece. It was difficult because my thread matched the fleece perfectly so you couldn’t really see the stitches. When I did rip out a stitch or two and pulled on it, not too many other stitches ripped so it took me awhile. Fortunately, there were not too many mistakes and once I got to the second pocket everything was going smoothly. Here are my pockets:

As you can see, the one pocket is longer than the other one. This was my first experience with having to fold the corners in and apparently I did not do it properly so I had to rip out the seam on the bottom of the one pocket. Once the seam was ripped out I tried stitching it again and it turned out much better the second time and I even managed to get both pockets stitched to the front pieces of the robe.

Once the pockets were sewn onto the front pieces I then attached the front pieces to the back piece at the shoulders.

The last thing that I had time to do was to attach the sleeves at the sleeve opening. I was very happy with how smoothly that went. I still have to stitch the sleeves closed but hopefully I will have time to do that tomorrow. I did not take a picture of the robe with the sleeves attached because Gabriel came in to get me because Daddy wanted to ask me something about the Christmas decorations. That’s when my sewing ended for the day. My parents came over right after that to watch the boys so Tom and I could head out to look into new cell phones. I was very happy to get a Smartphone! However, once the boys went to bed tonight I did not sew anymore on the robe as I initially intended to do…I have been playing with my Smartphone which is proving to be a bit smarter than me!

Hopefully tomorrow I will have pictures to post of either a finished robe or an almost finished robe. The Christmas rush is on!!

I was one of the mom helpers for Matthew’s preschool class at their Thanksgiving party today. Once the kids were done listening to a couple of books and doing their crafts it was snack time. The snack that the Room Mom put together was a Cornucopia for each child. She had the cornucopias in a plastic bag so they didn’t spill while handing them out and they were really cute and simple to make.

This is what she used:
1 large sugar cone or waffle cone
mini-marshmallows
raisins
chocolate chips
pretzel sticks
Goldfish crackers
mini Shredded Wheat
Cheerios

All you really need to do is make up your mixture of snacks and fill the cones up. For the picture I filled up the cone and gently layed it on its side and let some of the snacks fall out. I then added a few more snacks around the front of it to complete the look. I think that the cornucopias could be cute by each person’s plate at the Thanksgiving table. You could even place them on one of those paper doilies. I may have to pick up some snacks and ice-cream cones to make some cornucopias for Thanksgiving!

While I was wrapping Christmas presents last year the boys were really excited about helping. They decided that they wanted to give gifts too so we made some ornaments from a foam kit. This year they are making beaded candy canes. All you need for this project are pipe cleaners cut in 1/2, red beads and white beads. We used the beads that interlock with each other.

What we did was to bend one end of the pipe cleaner upward, that way the beads will not fall off. You don’t need to bend a big section, just a little portion on the bottom. Then we just strung the beads onto the pipe cleaner, alternating between red and white.

We string the beads almost to the end of the pipe cleaner but stop right before we get to the end. Then fold the end of the pipe cleaner down, just like on the starting end. The final step is to just bend the top portion of the beaded pipe cleaner into a candy cane shape and the candy cane is finished. If you want to hang up the candy cane you can tie a piece of string, yarn or fishing line to the bend of the candy cane and turn it into an ornament.

With the Holidays quickly approaching I find that this is the time of year that I am scrambling to finish making my Christmas gifts. Surprisingly, I am only knitting one gift this year and that is a scarf for my Step-Father. I will post a picture of it once I have it completed, however, I am not much farther than I was when I took this picture.

The beginnings of my Step-Father's scarf

I am knitting it in the round so that it will be twice as thick for him. I think that it will be very nice and warm once it is done but it’s just one of those projects that I find is super simple but yet takes awhile to complete.

I am sewing fleece bathrobes for my boys. I have one bathrobe cut out. I guess that I better get going on that project too!

I am also making the boys each a Winter no-sew fleece blanket. I have fleece with frogs wearing Santa hats for Gabriel and I have fleece with monkeys having a snowball fight for Matthew. Fortunately, those do not take that long to make.

At this point, I believe that these are all of the gifts that I will be making for Christmas this year. I used to make more but since I had the boys I just don’t seem to have as much time to get all of the projects done so I have had to limit the amount of gifts that are handmade. How about you? Do you make handmade gifts for giving during the Holidays?

I was so excited when I went out to the mailbox and found my Holiday issue of Vogue Knitting. When my Vogue Knitting magazine arrives in the mail I try not to peak at it right away. I like to try to wait until I can sit down with a snack and a cup of tea and my computer to look through the most current issue. I usually fold over the corner of the pages that have ads or items that I’m interested in and when I’m done going through the magazine once then I go through it again and look up all of the websites on the pages that I have folded over. Some of the products I find in there are so unique and interesting. This issue was no exception.

A few years ago I purchased a Knitting Nancy. Of course, now I cannot find it anywhere. I’m not sure if I loaned it to somebody or if it’s just lost. I have been thinking about purchasing another one but now this Holiday issue has an entire page of them. They have 12 different ones pictured along with the artists’ names and websites. I will be getting on my computer real soon to see about purchasing one. The ones they have pictured are so unique. I never thought to look for handpainted and/or handmade ones. The last one I purchased was just from a local craft store so this will be something that I will be looking into.

Once I worked my way through the ads (I still have to go back through and actually read the articles!) I then started to look at the patterns. There are a few in there that I really liked.

The first one that I liked was pattern number 1 which is an Aran sweater. I’ve never made anything with that many cables before but maybe someday I will.

Pattern number 17 was a simple mohair cowl-neck tunic with a very plunging cowl-neck. I thought that the sweater was just beautiful but I don’t know if I would have the patience to knit that much stockinette stitch.

This next pattern is a trio set which is very pretty. It is pattern number 25 and has a tunic sweater, very long vest and a cowl. I think that the cowl would be great in the Winter since you could wear it either up or down.

Pattern number 28 was very interesting with the mesh pattern and cabling.

Finally, I found a Rowan sweater that I really liked but it was in an ad so that pattern is not in the magazine. It was one of those sweaters that just caught my eye and is just different. I liked it.

This Holiday issue of Vogue Knitting was not one that I sat down and read with my cup of tea. This has been a busy week for us so sitting down and relaxing with a cup of tea and a knitting magazine was not something that I had time to do so I looked through it somewhat quickly when I had a little bit of time. Now that the boys are in bed and the house is quiet, I am going to get my cup of tea and my magazine and sit down with my computer and start looking up all the interesting websites and reading the articles!

For the love of knitting…I decided to make a sweater that I was sure to like in the end.

For the love of knitting…I spent a couple of hours in the yarn store selecting the yarn for the sweater…along with my 2 preschoolers (fortunately the yarn store is owned by a grandmother who keeps a toybox full of toys for kids!).

For the love of knitting…I tested my gauge for the sweater, several times.

For the love of knitting…I am trying not to knit any other projects until this sweater is finished (OK, I do have a Christmas scarf on the needles for my Step-Father).

For the love of knitting…I have spent a year working on this sweater and had wanted to finish it by Christmas 2011.

For the love of knitting…I ripped out the cabled waistband on the sweater left front piece not once, but twice, so that the finished sweater will be just right.

For the love of knitting…I finally casted on the front right section, the last section.

For the love of knitting…I misread the pattern and knit an extra 5 inches.

For the love of knitting…I frogged said 5 inches only to notice a glaring mistake down a few more inches.

For the love of knitting…I frogged the next few inches but have not been able to get the lace pattern correctly back on the needles.

For the love of knitting… I will frog the rest of the section, about 10 more inches, so that I can start that section over so that it is done correctly.

For the love of knitting…I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS SWEATER ALREADY, my other knitting projects are getting backed up!!

I found this craft in Gooseberry Patch Christmas Book 12
and I thought that I would give it a try with the boys. It is the Birdseed Stars. The boys were excited about it because they enjoy playing with the birdseed and with glue.

We did this as a two day project. On Day One we glued the craft sticks together. We made some using large craft sticks and some using small craft sticks. The boys were definately enjoying the gluing and they made some interesting shapes. One thing to keep in mind though…if you are making these birdseed stars to put outside, make sure that you glue the craft sticks together using a waterproof glue or some kind of glue that can be used outside. My Firefighter asked me what kind of glue I was using after I had glued a few together and, as soon as he said it, it dawned on me that I needed glue that could be kept outside. Fortunately, he had a glue like that so I had to re-glue the backside of the birdseed stars that I had already glued.

We glued four craft sticks together in the shape of a star. This is what it looked like when we were done.

Once the glue was dried we drilled a hole into the top of the bottom craft stick and used some twine as a hanger. You need to be careful to use a small drill bit though because we had first used one that was too large and it cracked the craft stick.

On Day Two we began with the birdseed. This part was a bit trickier. The directions say to use a non-toxic glue, spread it on the craft stick star and then press it into the birdseed. When we tried it, hardly any of the birdseed stuck. We found that you really had to spread the glue on pretty thick in order to get the birdseed to stick well. If you are just making a few then that should be fine but we were making a lot of them so that would get pretty expensive. The non-toxic glue was a bit hard to find and we used up what we had pretty quickly.

Since we are hanging these birdseed stars outside we decided to just use the peanut butter and cornmeal mixture that we used in the pine cone birdfeeder post. We spread the mixture on the birdseed stars and then pressed the stars into the birdseed and then the birdseed stayed on real nice.

The boys were having a lot of fun making these. First thing in the morning Gabriel was already asking if we could start.

In the end the birdseed stars turned out nice. I was a little disappointed that the birdseed needed so much non-toxic glue to stick but, since we are putting these outside, we just opted to go with the peanut butter mixture. We are going to hang them up outside on one of our trees. We are planning on a couple of more natural outdoor decorations too so I will post those as soon as we are done with them.

I just purchased this magazine today at my LYS and I am in love!! I want to knit at least half of the stuff in it.

I received an email from my LYS announcing that they were going to be carrying this magazine, which has been put out by Interweave Knits, so I placed my order right away. I have been interested in Jane Austen since highschool when my mother introduced me to her works. I saw the A&E showing of Pride and Prejudice that was put out by the BBC a number of years ago. I liked it so much that my mother bought me the 6 video VHS set for Christmas one year. I know, VHS, I’m dating myself here! I have no idea how many times I have watched the show but I”m seriously considering purchasing the DVD set next. I’m afraid that the VHS set will wear out one day. I also have the Sense & Sensibility video and may replace that one day with a DVD as well.

A number of years ago, at least 10 or more, I had taken my Pride and Prejudice videos by my Great Aunt. That is one of my most wonderful memories with her. She enjoyed those videos so much. We watched one or two episodes each night until we got through all six of them. She talked about that series all the time after that. I think that I actually ended up taking it over there another time too because she enjoyed it so much.

Over the years I have gotten a few of Jane Austens books in paperback. When my Firefighter bought me a Kindle last year for Christmas I was able to download all of Jane Austen’s books through Amazon.com and they were on the free list so it didn’t even cost me anything. Now I just have to read them. I find myself going back to my favorites though such as Pride and Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility.

When I opened the magazine I found so many patterns that I liked. The patterns are definately designed based on the era in which Jane Austen lived but yet they are designed in such a way that you can wear them with modern clothes.

A few of my favorites are the Northanger Abbey Hood, the Scarlet Capelet and the Picturesque Cape.

Picturesque Cape

Left: Northanger Abbey Hood; Right: Scarlet Capelet

Top Right: Evening Spencer; Bottom Right: Picturesque Cape

There are so many more patterns in this book that I want to knit. There are 35 projects total in the magazine and I have a feeling that I will be knitting a lot of those. The other feature that I really like in this magazine is the articles. There are several articles that discuss movies that were based on Jane Austen’s books, one that discusses Muslin and a timeline of Jane’s World in History. There are also a few other articles discussing knitting and Jane Austen’s era. I really liked the Dry Goods pages with the novelty items.

I purchased the magazine at my LYS but I did see it at www.knitpicks.com. You can also find more information on this at www.janeaustenknits.com.

My boys are sleeping in their beds right now so I am going to settle in for the night with a nice hot cup of herbal tea and read my new Jane Austen Knits magazine and daydream about which projects I will do first…right after I finish my Vogue Knitting sweater that I started last year (which is almost done) as well as the scarft that I’m knitting for my Step-father for Christmas. Actually, instead of reading this magazine I should be finishing up those two knitting projects as well as working on my Knitivity KAL. Oh well, today I’m spending it with Jane!