Every year I get beautiful Christmas cards that it seems a shame to throw out, but this year I got an especially treasured one. My friend K hand drew a special climber’s card. I didn’t want to toss it but I’m not normally one to hang onto cards either, so I was really happy when I saw this idea online to make place mats out of your Christmas cards by cutting them into shapes and arranging them on clear contact paper. Some people make more organized place mats with all the shapes the same but I like this free form one I made. Too bad I only got enough Christmas cards for one place mat. Guess I’ll have to do it every year.

The blanket I made for Jake when he was born got misplaced so I made a replacement. I forgot to get a picture of it but the only difference between the original and the new one is that the green stripes only go in one direction. It was faster and took less green yarn that way (I was lucky I had as much left over as I did and that I hadn’t used it for anything else).

Kiana’s brother got basketball shoes for baby booties so her parents wanted ballet slippers to continue the theme. This was a basic pattern from Precious Baby Booties with some extra ribbons sewn on and some tissue stuffed in the toe.

I had trouble with the zipper (the zipper foot doesn’t guide so well over multiple layers of fleece) and I didn’t finish off the seams, but this is a cute sleeper from a pattern. It seems kind of big for a newborn to me but I don’t have a newborn to try it on. The way you put the elastic in for the booties is kind of ingenuous but I had a lot of trouble reading this pattern and did a ridiculous amount of ripping things out. I don’t know if the pattern was worded badly or if it was just that I’m rusty. I’m also still not liking the new sewing machine but if I tape certain parts into place it does its job.

This is my own design – rows of fluffy, white bunny tails with variegated rag confetti in between. Not very practical but very girlish. Now let’s just hope it turns out to be a girl, otherwise there will be some quick re-work.

This was originally planned for a boy – a boy with a dramatic flair, obviously. But it was so long delayed I think he’d outgrown it before it was done and it went to a friend’s daughter instead. Made of fun fur and other entertaining yarns, it was my own simple design – 3 rows DC purple stuff, 1 row DC white stuff, 1 row SC fun fur, 1 row DC white stuff, repeat. Soft, fluffy, and very eye-catching if that’s your taste.

A pretty kit that worked up more nicely than the photo on the front and that was fun to do. Since I made so few Christmas ornaments last year (and only at the last minute) I figured I get a jump this year.

Ha ha! Thought I was dead, didn’t you? I haven’t made anything in ages, but Christmas woke me up enough to do these (from a kit, except I left some of the excess trim off) and a beaded thing from a kit that I didn’t take photos of.

I made these three scarves from the same yarn – a chunky homespun for the body and then a feathered edge. Well, two have a feathered edge. One is for a boy. I made them for the techies for a show I was acting in. It’s pretty hard to see any detail in this photo, unfortunately, but the yarn worked up really nicely.

I got the striped clay working this time, but there was a lot of contamination (red clay gets all over every surface and tool and white clay picks it up so easily) so I only got one sort-of-OK candy cane out of it before giving up. That’s the flat one in the upper, left-hand corner. What worked better was twisting strands of different colors together as you can see in the other canes.