Holiday Cookie Exchange

I started a new job in July and decided to port over from my last job the holiday tradition of a cookie exchange. It went fairly well, as you can see here. I made the dark chocolate sour cherry cookies. They are a Martha Stewart recipe and I make them every year. They are fabulous!

February Sweater for Baby

Finally, another finished project! It's been a long dry spell, but I have several things in the works now. This is another Elizabeth Zimmerman project - one of those projects that takes a great leap of faith to work through the seemingly very wrong parts of the pattern.

Pattern: Febrauary Sweater
Book: Knitter's Almanac
Author: Elizabeth Zimmerman
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino Aran
Czech glass buttons from Beads and More in Redmond, WA

Cardigan in Process

This is the bottom back of a cardigan I have started knitting. It's the first garment I've knitted using Fair Isle. I'll keep you updated on how it's going!

Pattern: Margaret
Book: Primera, Manos Silk Blend
Yarn: Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

A New Look for an Old Girl

My mom and I just finished taking an upholstery class. It was fun, and I learned quite a bit about how furniture is put together, or at least how it is covered. Inerestingly, depending on the piece of furniture you select, you can get by with very little sewing. It is mostly about stapling fabric to the frame of the furniture. In my piece, I had to sew the channel backing and the matching welting that goes around the front. Otherwise, a lot of staples, a couple of tack strips, and a little bit of glue. My mom also showed me how to remove old varnish from the wood parts of the loveseat. We left the wood au naturel.

Here she is, before and after.

Box Cushions

My mom and I took a class at Pacific Fabrics the other day where we learned how to make box cushions. They're relatively easy once you get the hang of it. I think it turned out fairly well for my first project.

One thing I learned is that foam is extremely expensive, which is probably a good thing since it's not very environmentally friendly. We're going to take a chair upholstering class as well, so I hope to find some "green" supplies for that project. But first, I have to find the chair I want to recover!

Letterpress Valentines

I took a letterpress printing class at Oblation Papers and Press in Portland, Oregon last year. These are some of my favorite Valentines that I made there. Oblation has classess occasionally and sells wonderful paper and related products. We got our wedding invitations made there as well.

Blue Bunny

This is the first toy, other than a basic ball, that I have knitted. It's a leap of faith, I must say. The pieces don't look right until you put it all together. And they looked so tiny while they were in process! It took a little while to understand how all of the pieces would connect, but now that I've done it, doing another one would be very simple.

I was reminded of another important lesson during the process - make sure you have all of the yarn you need for your project before you start. Not only could I not find the same yarn at my local yarn store where I bought it multiple years ago, but the designer had discontinued this particular type of yarn. Luckily, we have ebay and I found a random ball there, but it was twice the price it would have been at the store originally.

Pattern: Rabbit
Book: Special Knits by Debbie Bliss
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Merino DK in blue
Stuffing: generic loose polyester unbonded fill (sometimes hard to find - I got mine at Pacific Fabrics)