Cozy

And now I'm ready for company!

Duvet cover #1 finished; I never thought I'd be so excited by mermaids at age 30, but I am. Heather Ross, consider me a fan.

And Duvet #2 is needing a backing at the moment. I snapped this photo while sewing the squares into strips. Like the first, it's a mix of vintage sheets and new fabrics.

My sister is catching a red eye flight bound from San Francisco to Boston tonight. I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep with all the excitement, which quite frankly works out perfectly well considering everything I have left on my to do list. I haven't seen her in six months, but it feels more like a lifetime. She's only here for a few days, then heading back out west while I'm flying down to Arkansas to visit my other sister and her family. Here's to frequent flyer miles!

But before that, there's much to be done. I'm planing to bake a torte for Christmas dinner at my Grandparents. I have assorted odds and ends to wrap. And there's sheets that need to be washed and rugs vacuumed.

But after that, I am going to kick back, drink large mugs of steaming hot coffee and enjoy the season. Oh yes, I am.

Happy Holidays!

Stay Warm

One Christmas present down, fifty-gazillion to go!

This is the scarf I was working on for my Mom, finished in the wee hours of the morning. I used three skeins of Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo yarn (say that five times fast) in denim. It's soft and appropriately, well, snuggly. The color is sort of a cornflower shade, which is tough to tell by the photo which came out a bit washed out. Nice yarn, quick knit and the crochet edging gives it a little somethin' somethin'.

If it weren't for the fact this is for my mother, I would steal it. But seeing that she was in labor with me for 22 hours, I feel I kind of owe her one.

Deck The Halls

So this was a, "I need a craft project that takes less than two years to finish and offers some sure-fire instant gratification."

I've been eyeing all the lovely wreath projects on the 'net lately and been fixing to make one for awhile. I just don't think (right now) I have the attention span to tackle any of those. Enter this.

For materials I used a paper plate as a base. I found a tutorial online that used this idea, but for the life of me I can't find the link now. In that tutorial they'd used punched paper and covered the base in purple and blue circles. It was really nice, but I wanted something a little more traditional. I decided to cut "leaves" from recycled off-white paper in varying sizes. Once the leaves were cut out, I glued these to the wreath with SoBo glue, angling them so it didn't look too matchy-match. It was looking just so-so, so I brushed a real thin coat of silver acrylic paint over everything. Did the trick. To finish it off, I added some glittery spots to mimic holly berries, tied it up with some yarn and stuck it up near my computer. Finished. It did end up taking a bit longer than I thought, but when you've been knitting the same pair of socks since October, it's all relative.

And there have been cookies lately. Store bought, but they just taste better this time of year, right?

Soup's On

Best soup. Ever. Maybe that's hyperbole, I don't know. I'm so in love with this it's hard to be rational.

I read a lot of magazines, but I throw them out as soon as I'm done otherwise my living space would be over-run with glossies. I have a red three ring binder though that I keep stuffed with torn out pages. I've got a section for home decorating, clothing refashion ideas, holiday crafts and yup, recipes.

While looking for something easy, fast and hot (because dang, have you been outside lately?), I found this one from Rachel Ray. You can get the recipe on her site here. The only thing I didn't do was put the whole thing through the food processor because I like my corn chowder chunky. And I am also inherently lazy and hate washing a food processor. The truth hurts.

Unfortunately the entire batch has been consumed and I am staring down a lunch of ramen noodles. Sob! I think I'll need to whip up another batch like now.

Pieces

I am getting somewhere! Finally! And now all I want to do is use exclamation points! Yes!

Okay. Enough with the gratuitous punctuation usage. But really, considering I've bitten off way more than I can chew, I gotta' do a little cheerleader-ing.

This is the top to one of the duvet covers; it's a bit smaller than I need, so I'm going to cut some white strips to elongate the edges. Once that's done, I need to stitch up the sides and add some button holes to one end. Deep breath. I'm getting there but next year if I decide to take on a half a dozen craft projects someone needs to smack me. For reals.

And like 80% of the corners line up perfectly. I'm cool with that percentage.

And now I'm actually going to go back to finishing the edges. It's starting to snow outside, our first of the season. I'm eagerly anticipating some hot chocolate and "It's A Wonderful Life" tonight on television (I think Jimmy Stewart is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread). So, back to the sewing machine.

Give Thanks

Over a week with nothing to say? Deplorable. What can I say. I've been busy packing away stuffing and cranberry sauce. And admiring my Aunt's glass turkey's. Gobble.

Duvet covers? First one cut and almost all assembled. Nieces' nightgowns? Two out of three cut and also almost assembled. Socks? I'm mired in second sock purgatory, but just passed the heel tonight. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I should get some photos of all of that. It would be nice if the sun would cooperate and stay out past 4:30, sheesh...

But I did get a quick one of this scarf in progress. It's part of a Christmas present. Shhhh!