Two more - and just one left to go!

I pulled together two last-minute baby gifts this weekend, which leaves just one more gift to finish. I'd been saving an accidentally felted cashmere sweater for a special project, and decided that a new baby's first Christmas is the perfect occasion. So I looked at some bear patterns and then just kind of winged it; it didn't take long to sew it by hand and I'm really happy with how he turned out - he is so soft! I also made this bunch of colored knitted balls for the same baby. They are so fast to make; I only wish I'd had the foresight to put a jingle bell or rattle in the center of each one...next time, I guess!

Approaching deadline

Clockwise from top left: Two blank notebooks for a brother-in-law, made mostly with scraps of materials from work; a few of my holiday cards for this year, also made with scraps & salvaged materials from work; a rainbow spiral scarf for one of my nieces; and two ribbed cotton hats for two other brothers-in-law. I'm still working on a couple of crafty gifts and hope to start with all the food-gift making this week!

Cage comforters

As one of my charity crafting projects for the year, I finally finished making 11 Cage Comforters to donate to New York Animal Care & Control. Pictured above are three of my favorites. I used fabric recycled from clothing and sheets; the tops of the cushions are mostly knit fabrics, while the cotton sheets make up the bottoms. They're about an inch thick each, and around 12" x 18" in size, as specified by NYACC. These were very simple to make, and I hope they do provide some comfort to a few animals in need. I would have liked to make more but I have a full roster of gifts in progress, and I was limited by a tight budget for materials. Maybe next year I'll be able to do more.

A baby gift + animals are people, too.

The Baby Surprise Jacket is done, in plenty of time for the baby's October arrival. This jacket was a joy to knit. I used a machine washable acrylic/wool blend from my stash and some sweet purple buttons I also had on hand. The jacket turned out the perfect size for the baby to wear through the winter.










And here are some little things for the animals. On a recent rainy Saturday, I spent the morning working on the Cage Comforters, one of my charity projects. There they are on the right, stacked up after being sewn & stuffed. I still need to sew up the stuffing holes and then tack them in a few places before they are ready to donate. I had some scraps of fabric left, so I cut them into strips and braided them to make toys for a friend's two Chihuahuas.

New gift projects + crafting for animals

Over a long weekend recently, I had time to flesh out my bare-bones holiday gift plan. I filled in a lot of blanks and was happy to note that I will probably not have to buy any new yarn to complete the knitted & crocheted gifts I hope to make. Pictured above are the beginnings of two holiday gifts: a wool vest for my Dad and a Baby Surprise Jacket for a niece.

During my time off I also started work on one of my (non-work related) charity crafting projects: Cage Comforters for Animal Care & Control of New York. These are small, simply constructed cushions for the animals housed in AC&C facilities. I'm also planning to make hats for a neighborhood shelter or mission, but I really wanted to allocate some of my charitable crafting energy to a project for animals. Anyway, fabric is not in my budget at the moment, but I had just cleaned out my closet and had some clothes set aside to donate to my local thrift shop, so I pulled out some dresses & other larger items and cut them down. Now I have a stack of pieces ready to sew together - all I need now is the batting.

Audubon card + blankie update

These are poor pictures, so take my word for it when I tell you these things look much better in person. Anyway, on the left is the card I made for my Dad for Father's Day, using some card stock from my bin of saved paper and a lovely Audubon image from an advertising supplement in the New York Times (there were a bunch of beautiful Audubon images - I cut them all out and added them to the paper bin). I also happened to have a little brown envelope that fit the card perfectly! My gift to him was a CD of folk & blues (Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, etc.) which I didn't take a picture of because I just printed the insert with iTunes.

On the right is the Tree of Life blankie in its current state. I'm just starting the first "flower garden" section.

Starting small

I spent yesterday afternoon making cards and envelopes. For the cards, I used double-sided pages that I'd saved from an old Lotta Jansdotter address book. I folded each page in half and inserted a slightly smaller folio of translucent paper for writing on. To secure the two folios I tied embroidery floss around the fold. I made 20 of these; they are about 3 1/2 x 5 inches.












For envelopes, I used odd paper I've been saving and some old military field maps I got years ago when the museum I worked at was throwing them away. I used my circle cutter to cut an 8" circle and then folded it around a card. I cut the triangles out from between the flaps and then glued the bottom flap to the side flaps.










Below left are two finished envelopes. The paper with the birds on it was what my printer produced when I ran some test or other on it - I thought it was so cute so I saved it. On the right are some other envelopes I made from an old calender. These envelopes are squares with four half-circle flaps, and I made them the right size to hold a CD.