Christmas: the Gifts

I think I’ve mentioned before that Christmas this year snuck up on me.  Usually, I am knitting and planning as early as September.  I scour my stash and figure out who will get what.  I figure out what will take the longest time to knit and what will take the shortest and figure out how to devote my time accordingly.

But between taking up quilting, business at work, and perhaps even the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having, Christmas knitting just hasn’t been on my radar.  Actually, truth be told, Christmas in general wasn’t on my radar until it was nearly upon us.

Once realization that I had family and friends who loved woollens hit, I got down to business.  Worsted weight wool makes for quick projects; handwarmers are also quick.  Put those two facts together and you have me, knitting desperately away in the goal of maintaining hand warmth.

1. Escalator Socks, 2. Handspun Handwarmers, 3. Evangeline for Lindsay, 4. Evangeline for Aimee

The Escalator socks (Ravelry link, click above for Flickr link) I begun last July for my best friend and co-gingerbread house builder.  We were road tripping through Pennsylvania and spent many hours in my little car together in the lush green forests of Warren County, Pennsylvania.

The pink handwarmers were for another favorite person, my grad school roommate, Sarah,  who is one of the most cheery, bright people I know.  She is also a big proponent of handmade gifts and mindful, resourceful living and I know that after a year of living with me and my wool, she’d appreciate something handmade.

Another college friend requested a pair of handwarmers for one of her coworkers.  I don’t usually take knitting on demand requests, but this one was different.  For one, I sort of lump it into my gift to her.  For two, the specific pattern she wanted (Evangeline) is a pretty fast knit.

So fast that I banged out another pair for another friend (the green ones) the weekend before Christmas.  Unfortunately, our friend gift swap was smack in the middle of that weekend, prompting me to fall back on the old knitter trick of wrapping a gift with the needles still in.  Luckily, I have very gracious friends.

I am still in process with other projects – a floppy hat and another pair of fingerless mittens. And I haven’t yet sent out my Christmas cards.  But then I was thinking that, as a Christian, the main message of this season is Emmanuel, God with us.  God with us in the present, no matter what month is is.  Thus, I will be sending out my cards and finishing my presents, trusting that they’ll be received in the spirit of Christmas.

 

 

 

Tradition

One of my favorite new traditions is building a gingerbread house with my best friend on Christmas Eve.  The tradition started last year.  She wanted to build a gingerbread house, so we got a kit from Jo-Ann Fabrics.  The kit came with pre-cut pieces, royal icing mix, and little bags of candies to decorate.  It was super cute.    It was also your basic gingerbread house.

This year, we decided to try something a bit more…  ambitious.  And perhaps Harry Potter-oriented.  We started planning early.  In January, I sent her pictures of a Burrow (the home of the Weasleys) made out of gingerbread.  From there, we thought about making Hogwarts, but at last we landed on Hagrid’s Cottage.  We decided to make our own gingerbread dough and cut out pattern pieces and go from there.

Cut to December 22nd.  I made the dough following the Simply Recipes recipe, which I refrigerated overnight.

The next afternoon, as Steph figured out how to build the house and cut pattern pieces, I rolled out half of it on my countertop.  Hagrid’s cottage has six sides and a sloped roof.  Steph made a template for the walls and two sizes of triangles for the roof.  Once the pattern templates were ready, I cut out the pieces – six rectangles for the walls, and six each of two sizes of triangle for the roof.  I also cut four skinny rectangles for the chimney and another rectangle for the porch roof.  (Let me know if you want my pattern!  I’ll post templates after Christmas)

We also cut holes for windows in two of the walls.  I stuck some crushed Jolly Ranchers in the holes, which melted into translucent window panes.  I also made the royal icing according to the recipe above and colored it light brown with food coloring.

Putting the house together took a while.  The icing wasn’t as sticky or thick as last year’s, although it was a lot easier to pipe.  That meant that we had to wait for it to dry before moving on to the next step.  The roof also took some ingenuity to build – we ended up putting cardboard and a mason jar ring lid (!) under it for support.  And used my hairdryer to speed the drying process.  The pathway is made from rolled-out caramels cut with a bottle cap, the forest is mint leaves, and the door is frosted on.  The porch supports are Tootsie Rolls sourced from my boss.

When we do this next year and if I use the same recipe, I think I would half it.  I have enough leftover dough chilling in my freezer  to make a whole ‘nother Hagrid’s Hut.  The royal icing recipe was good for Hagrid’s Hut but if I was to make something bigger, I’d probably want to double it and add some cream of tartar or another thickening agent.

It may not be as professional as some of the houses online, but we’re very happy with the results!  And I feel extra awesome for making everything from scratch!

Disclaimer: I don’t own Harry Potter or the design inspiration for Hagrid’s Hut. 

Flakey

I’ve had snowflakes on the brain lately.  Not necessarily the frozen water ones that drift downwards once the weather gets cold but the paper ones that can be folded and cut.  I found this website called Make-a-Flake that lets you cut a virtual snowflake – warning, it’s kind of addicting!  Here are a couple flakes I just made:

I even designed some snowflakes using the program and then made paper versions to hang around my cube – I sketched the template from the cut screen on my folded paper and cut away.

The internet, where one can find a lot of odd everything, has supplied a couple of  snowflake options for nerdier/pop-culture types.  Being one of those types, I think the Yo(da)flake is my favorite. Or maybe Boba Fett.  Some templates are provided, which means I have found my lunchtime craft.

ETA:  Oh my gosh, you guys!  Here are the patterns for Star Wars  Snowflakes from Anthony Herrera Designs! 

But for tonight, I have Christmas gifts to sew.  I’m going to use noodlehead’s Gathered Clutch tutorial and add a wrist strap.  I got the clips today at lunch and the zippers over the weekend and the fabric will come from my scraps.   It’s been years since I sewed with a zipper, so here goes nothing!

Cosy Evening

This week has been especially stressful at work. To state it succinctly, there’s a lot of big company doins’ combined with an excess of issues in the lives of my coworkers. And as we draw near the darkest day of the year, my own emotional state has been a bit low.

Which is why last night’s events were all the more necessary for remains at equilibrium. One of my from grad school invited me up to NH for dinner, yarn talk, and an adventure in micro microbrewing. Her partner brews up a couple big batches a year and this time he invited our other labmate and me. I can’t say that I was any help to the brewing process but I did contribute to the removing of the products of previous brewing sessions.

And my grad school friend is a knitter! I taught her a year or two ago and she has embarked on a mitten odyssey. I am so proud of her I showed her knitting in the round on DPNs last time I saw her and left her with next step directions – here’s how to do the thumb gusset and let me know when you get there. But she found a mitten pattern on her own and last night, she had nearly a whole mitten!

I am working on Christmas knitting. A coworker of a dear friend has been eyeing the handwarmers I made a couple years ago so my friend commissioned a pair.

The pattern is Evangeline (Ravelry link) and it has become my go-to pattern for fancy fingerless gloves.  I have edited them slightly in that the original pattern has an afterthought thumb and I have added a thumb gusset for improved fit.  My goal was to finish them yesterday, but I watched Return of the King and was distracted by the awesome. But soon they will be done!

Tricks of the Trade

Learning to quilt has instigated learning new methods of documenting the finished product. While knitting socks taught me contortions and how far I could lean over in order to get a shot of the finished product, so far quilting has taught me that I have very understanding coworkers.

Here’s some backstory. My apartment is pretty tiny and it lacks open wall space to hang a quilt for photo documentation. I also lack the partner/spouse/roommate beneficial for the holding and photographing of the quilt.

Enter my coworker I. She graciously braved the heavy mist to hold up the quilt so I could snap a quick pic.

The quilt, called Kitchen Window, is from Elizabeth Hartman‘s great book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork. This is the second quilt I’ve cut but the first top I’ve finished. The fabric is mostly from Lizzie House‘s Outfoxed collection with guest appearances from her Castle Peeps and 1001 Peeps. I really enjoyed matching up the fabrics for the blocks – making sure no prints were repeated and that there was a balance of light and dark fabrics in each block. I love that pop of turquoise (thanks to Sew Fresh Fabrics for the indirect suggestion!) and I love how it turned out!

But in the future, I’ll have to figure out a better and more solitary method for photography. Any hints for the newbie?

In Process

When I get stressed, I tend to take up new hobbies. Quilting has been on my radar for a while now. I am inspired by a couple of modern quilters (Oh, Fransson! and Film in the Fridge, namely) but it wasn’t until work last month got crazy crazy that I took the plunge myself.

A few clicks later and I had a lovely bunch of fat quarters sailing their way to my little apartment. Then, several hours with my rotary cutter and mat produced the following:

Hello, first quilt!

A stack of squares all ready to be sewn. That’s tonight’s project. It is going to be Rectangle Squared when all’s said and done. But ssh – this one is going to be a giftie.

So far, so good. I really like how precise you can be with quilting. The little lines on the ruler really and truly can be lined up on with the cutting mat. Seams can be straight! Squares can be square! Most of my sewing in the past has been for garments. Costumes for high school plays were sewn on my Mother’s ancient 40-pound Singer. I may have been a Renaissance Faire geek at one point. But I think the number-one thing holding me back was that I could never fit the garments as precisely as I would have liked. But with quilting, I can line up the ruler for a piece of fabric that ends up being the dimensions I was hoping for. And this is very satisfying.

And then a funny thing happened:

Even more fabric!

Even more fabric got cut up – this time for me!

Wish me luck!

Hello!

Hello world!

I am Lucy.  I like to make things.  The things I like to make include socks, hats, gloves, quilts, soup, adventures, memories, and friends.