Worky work, busy bee!

 So, one of the many, MANY projects that I worked on tonight was a pair of pillow cases for Matt and myself.  They are made from flannel and are oh so warm and soft.  There’s my Hello Kitty sewing machine as well.  I absolutely adore that machine.  It has all of the features of a basic machine, only it’s green and has a kitty on the front!  (Of course you can’t see the kitty, seeing as how the fabric is in the way. . .)

Anyways, I was working on a pair of French Seam pillowcases, which is just a fancy way of saying that there are no raw edges on the inside of the pillow case.  They are so simple and fun to put together, I’ve already made a whole batch of them for gifts this year.  So, it’s starts out with (for a standard size) 3/4 yard for the body, 1/4 yard for the cuff, and 1/8 yard for the accent strip that goes in the middle.  Silly me forgot to take a picture of the finished project, but I’ll get that up later on. 

So, after you have cut off all of the selvedge edges and straightened up the fabric, then you would press your accent strip in half, right sides facing.  Lay the cuff fabric with right side up on the table, lay your accent strip with raw edges together on top of the cuff, then lay the body fabric of the case with right side down on top of that.  Roll the body of the case up so that you can see the bottom of the cuff, fold the cuff over the body of the case, and pin all raw edges together.  Sew a 1/4″ seam.

After you sew the seam, pull the body of the pillow through the tube until it is right sides out.  Fold case in half with right sides out, and sew another 1/4″ seam around the two raw edge sides of the case.  Trim the seam to an 1/8″, turn inside out, press again, and sew another 1/4″ seam around that.  Turn right side out, press one more time, and you’re done!  Beautiful pillow cases with no raw edges!

And now it’s time for a Santa Claus break!  That’s my mom playing Santa.  We’re making sure all of the pieces to our Santa suit are accounted for.  Matt is going to dress up as Santa to give away presents at his work this year.  He’s very excited about it.  He’s going to need a lot of stuffing though, seeing as how he is a tall and skinny guy.

 Here are a few pictures of my yarn stash.  I have more in the baskets on the next shelf up, but they aren’t displayed as nice as these ones.

 These in the round basket are some of my favorites.  There’s some Cascade 220, some 220 Paints, some Pastaza, and a few others.  I love this stuff.  There’s also some Angora/Wool which is soooo soft.  I wanted to make Ysolda‘s Stuffies out of that one, I have yet to get around to it though.

This is Pixel, one of my four cats.  She was just too cute not to photograph.  😉

Another project that I whipped up last night was a table runner for one of Matt’s secret Santa’s at work.  I used a charm pack which is a collection of 5″ squares.  The collection I chose is called Urban Indigo by Moda.  It’s very pretty.  All I did was so some squares together, sew those rows together, then threw it on the gammill for a quick quilting job, and voila!  A handmade/machinemade gift in less then 2 1/2 hours.

I decided to do a small to medium stipple on it.  I figured that since it will be a table runner, and most likely lie flat on a table, it should be fairly stiff and not too poofy.  That’s why I chose the small/medium stipple design.  It gives it a more dense feel.

Then it was off to the binding.  It was so small, it only took about half an hour or so.  It’s those big quilts that really get me.  Could take me days to get one of those finished!  😀  The picture below kind of gives you a sample of the quilting.  It’s a little dark. . .

Back on to knitting!  Sometimes I feel that I am a knitter trapped in a quilter’s body. . .but then other people call me a jack of all trades, so who knows.  I have so many hobbies and so little time, I try to squeeze everything in that I can.  Anyway, this hat was a pattern I discovered off of knitty.com.  The pattern’s designer made a short cable, grafted it together using the Kitchner Stitch, picked up stitches around the edge, and knitted up to a hat.  It turned out so cute with the rainbowy goodness that I disovered at the Flock and Fiber festival that I went to in August.  I believe this was made from Merino, so it’s pretty soft as well.

And there’s me. . .Aww, so cute.  😉

And here’s my three legged cat, Gizmo.  She fell out of a tree when she was younger, (she’s almost four, can you believe it?), so she is no longer allowed outside due to safety reasons.  She has so much life and spunk, she doesn’t even know she’s missing a leg!

Another Christmas project that I have finished is a pair of felted clogs for Matt’s mom.  They knit up so fast, and they are so simple, I am making a pair for my grandpa as well.  They turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  I love the leather bottoms.  They make them look almost professional. . .I said almost!  🙂

Here’s them in the pair.

So, back to the cabled trim from the hat we saw earlier. . .I wanted to make a matching pair of gloves since I have a scarf done in the same yarn.  So I trimmed the bottom of my gauntlets with the cable, I’m doing the body of the gloves in black, and I will finish off the fingerless tops with some more of the rainbow merino.  Can’t wait till they are closer to completion.  Not much on them so far, since I’ve been too busy with other things. . .

They are coming along rather nicely though.

Another holiday tradtion, Chex Mix!  I always make it as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and just about every week inbetween.  It’s one of my weeknesses. 

And we end this post with the love of my life, Gizmo.  She just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all the rest of that jazz.