Basket weaving

I ended up giving a couple of baskets to Leslie and Emelie for Christmas.

The Hearth Basket for Emelie 

The Egg Basket for Leslie

This one hasn't been stained yet;

and I will probably keep it for

myself.

Dirndl for Iris

Iris attends a German emersion school in Anchorage and needed a new Dirndl for their award ceremonies and other special events at school. Since she had outgrown her last one, Mimi was recruited to make one for her. She gave me an idea of what she wanted as far as fabrics and I sent her pictures of ones I thought might fit her tastes. She picked her favorites and I started sewing. The top seems a bit large on her, but there's room for growth, which, at her age is important.

I ordered the pattern from an Etsy shop: PaperScissorsFrocks

Paper ornaments

These are the ones I made at home to make 

sure they would be easy enough to do.

More ornaments ...

I took some papers to Alaska with me to make ornaments with Iris. One was a folded paper ornament made with this video tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRTO2ge3ddo&feature=emb_title

I think we used about a 4" round circle (lid from a cottage cheese container or something). 

I thought the German Bell ornaments would be a little harder to do but they were actually pretty easy. The tutorial is here: 

https://www.cindyderosier.com/2011/12/christmas-card-ornament.html

We made about 4 or 5 of the German Bells and a couple of the round ones, but my pictures apparently didn't come out. I couldn't find them all on my camera.

Iris used one of the German Bells to hold a 

gift card that was a gift to Leslie.

Knit socks

This pair of socks will go to a friend of mine. I think they may be a bit large for her, and if she thinks so, I will offer to knit her another pair. These were originally knit to be men's socks but she does have a large foot. NOTE: She says they fit perfectly!

Fabric ornaments

Here is a sample of the ornaments I made as tuck-ins with the Christmas cards. I didn't get a picture of all of them, and I used several different fabrics. I cut fabric circles using a CD as a pattern; then sewed trim around the edge; folded them in half and formed them into tree shapes. I put a dab of hot blue between the folds to help them hold their shape and added a snowflake to the top.

2019 Christmas cards

Although I finished these Christmas cards for my Christmas Friends Home craft forum group early in the year, I didn't want to post them on my blog until after Christmas 2019. These were made with machine embroidery designs from emblibrary.com, stitched with metallic thread on glittered organza.

Knit cowls for Emelie and Julia

When in Nebraska visiting Emelie the week after Thanksgiving, Julia picked out this yarn at Joanns and wouldn't be talked into anything else as she cuddled it all the way up to the checkout. I made a cowl with it which turned out to be too big for Julia, so I made a smaller one. Now Emelie and Julia have matching cowls.

Cross stitch fox flat fold

Durene Jones is one of my favorite cross stitch designers. This is a free chart from cross-stitching.com which I made into a first birthday flat-fold card for Valentin. 

Lesson learned ... I should have read the tutorial for flat-folds before I began this project.

Cross stitch birthday card

This is the birthday card I made for Shirley. Her birthday is 2 days after mine. I believe this is a Durene Jones design.

Knit socks

I made these socks for Matthias for Christmas and finished them in the middle of October. When I went to find them to wrap for Christmas, I couldn't find them anywhere; so I started knitting another pair. Finally the lost pair showed up when I was looking for a birthday card I had made for a friend. So I figure I have a head start on a gift for him for Christmas 2020. I used Patons Kroy Socks yarn, color Blue Brown Marl, knit on size 2 needles. Since the stripes don't match on the foot part, and I wanted to fix it, so I took yarn out to make it match, I joke that it is so he can tell the left sock from the right one or that one is German and one is American. LOL


 

Cuddle throws

These cuddle throws are Christmas gifts for Leslie and Emelie and their families. They are so very soft and cuddly.

The blue and green one 

is for Leslie's family.

This red one is for Emelie's

family.

Christmas ornaments

 'Tis the Season! I've made these ornaments for the grandchildren.

These first four pictures are of the 3-D ornament I made for Iris. Here is a link to the foreign site where I downloaded the chart. There are many free ornament charts there. I will probably do more of them at some point.

http://www.chez-mamigoz.com/2015/11/album-deco-sapin-de-noel.html

Valentin's first Christmas...
Chart is from Dureen Jones'
Christmas countdown
Advent Calendar published
in The World of Cross Stitching.

Sonja and Julia are Grinch fans.

Merwin did the faces since he

is more artistic than I am.

Embellished sweatshirt

I found these sweatshirts that I really like, and I've shown a couple before that I've embellished with machine embroidery. This is my latest one that I added my initials to. This design is from Designs by JuJu.

Zippered craft pouch

One of the members of Sewing Club issued the group a fun challenge. She had visited the quilt shop in Leavenworth but didn't have anything in particular she was looking for, so she purchased some pretty fall fabric and brought pieces of it to our meeting to share with those who would make something with it and return with their item for show-and-tell. She wanted to take a picture of everything our members had made with the fabric and send it to the owner of the quilt shop where she had purchased the it. It was a fun challenge, and inspired me to made this zippered craft pouch which is large enough for an 8 1/2" x 11" paper. I've been wanting something this size for my cross stitch when I have a print out that size and don't want to have to cut it down. It's made with clear vinyl on one side, so I can easily see what project is inside.

Tissue box cover

One more tissue box. I know, I always say, "one more" as if it's the last one. I decided on some machine embroidery butterflies that I believe I got from Artistic Tread Works online. This will be a Christmas birthday gift for my friend, Shirley.

Yo-yo elephant

This yo-yo elephant will be Valentin's first Christmas present from Mimi. I know he plays with the yo-yo bear I made for Julia. 

Embellished dress

This is part of Sonja's birthday present. I purchased a plain dress at WalMart and embellished it with yo-yos and a couple of buttons.

Cross stitch birthday cards

This chart by Rhona Norrie originally appeared 

in issue 255 of The World of Cross Stitching.

Here are a couple of cards for fall birthdays. A sailboat motif for Anders; and a ladybug for Sonja who is turning 4 years old (and wanted to be a ladybug on Halloween).

This darling ladybug is the Charles Craft

Showcase Huck Ladybug that was

available at www.dmc-usa.com.

Knit prayer shawl

One more prayer shawl. This one was made in memory of my friend Nancy's husband, Dan. It will be donated to Hospice. Again, it's my favorite One Row pattern using Premier's Puzzle yarn. It looks like the color is called Crossword.

Fall table runner

Another September finish for myself was a table runner for our kitchen counter. I've had this fabric for quite some time and finally decided it would make a beautiful fall table runner made from the Easy Striped Table Runner Pattern by The Quilt Company. I goofed up the cutting, so my table runner turned out a bit shorter, but I do like it that way. I actually liked this fabric so much that I purchased more of it, so you will see pop up in my future crafting, I'm sure.

Doesn't it look great with a loaf of homemade bread on it?