We are enjoying true winter here right now. It is currently hovering around the 10 degree mark. Brrr!!!! What a great day to stay in and craft, huh?

I wanted to show a few more of my Christmas gifts. I actually did not do as much crafting this year for Christmas as I have in the past and very little of what I did do was knitting. I just think I have knitted something for everyone now and have no great ideas, except for the two items I did make.

The first you have already seen – well, at least a glimpse of it. I knit my mom a sweater. The sweater she picked was an easy knit and knit up fast. It had all that I love in a fast garment – almost non-existent sleeves, no seaming in the end, and a large gauge. The sweater is the Juliet pattern from Zephyr Style. The original calls for a bulky yarn or holding two strands together throughout, but Mom wanted a lighter weight sweater. I used one strand of worsted weight yarn knit on large needles to give me the correct gauge. The sweater was light and airy. My only issue with the finished garment was that it was that it didn’t have the fit I really wanted, but that was more due to a stubborn mother who refused to give me more measurements than she was a size medium. This was, of course, the sweater I messed up big time when I used the wrong yarn halfway through knitting it. I didn’t get a picture of it on Mom, but this is how it looked after blocking it (all pictures can be clicked to see larger):

I would have preferred to have a proper measurement for the length of the top section, but what could I do?

The second knitted item was a pair of socks for my sister. I hesitate to knit socks for people but only because I know how amazing hand knit socks are and they never want just one pair! But my sister asked! I used Knitpicks Stroll Tweed Sock yarn in Masala. It was my first time using it and I really liked it – which is good, since I bought some for myself! I used the Embossed Leaves pattern from “Favorite Socks” from Interweave. The pattern was pretty easy, but I found that I eventually did better if I turned the chart into written instructions – which is backwards from what I normally do! It just saved me counting the squares on the chart over and over.

I finished the first sock quickly. The second sock almost was the victim of SSS – Second Sock Syndrome – and wasn’t finished until about 3 AM Christmas morning! It was a fun, easy pattern, but other crafts sort of got in the way. So, here is the sock (and has any other fellow knitter noticed it is nearly impossible to take a sock-in-action shot without your ankle or foot looking HUGE?):

The second photo is a shot of the stitch pattern so you can see the leaves.

Finally, my big project! I had planned this one for some time, but didn’t know if I could pull it off to the degree I had hoped. I finally decided to just give it a go. I will say that I was highly inspired by Melissa Crowe (Checkout Girl) and her beautiful felt pictures. The first time I saw them I was in awe and so inspired, yet I also felt totally out of my league with her work. But, I gave it a go and I am very pleased with the results!

My mom got married in February to a man who hates to receive gifts. So we are always trying to come up with ways to give him gifts that he can’t complain about (usually by gifting them to the two of them.) My husband had taken many of their wedding photos and I was inspired by one in particular:

The happy couple! I actually had several similar shots so I sort of compiled them to get the best shot of each. I used craft felt and embroidery floss for the whole picture and sewed it onto linen. Here is the final result:

Details:

The roses – these are done in 3D.

Mr. & Mrs. B. (The blue you see above was a banner that was later removed due to framing issues.)

The whole picture turned out to be 8×10. I was able to frame it in an 11×13 frame, but I had to take the glass out because of the 3D roses. I am pretty proud of my work! I hope they like it, too. It took me quite a long time to do, but I enjoyed seeing the details emerge as I stitched.

I had several other things planned for Christmas that just didn’t get done. Hopefully they will be completed in the near future so I can have some blog posts for January!