You did an awesome job on the sweater! I loves it!
I don’t knit, but I crochet. Last year I made my mom a spider stitch afghan, but I don’t have any pictures. It was the hardest pattern for me to learn and I was insanely proud of it when I was done.
This year I’m making her a wrap to go along w/the blanket. My crocheting will be tame this year as far as presents go. Last year I made afghans for everyone so a wrap is all I can manage.
Yup, Mirror image egami rorriM, I love your bead embroidery! Too cool!
And I just sent you e-mail about your felt jewelry. 
congodwarf your creations are too cute!
And I have serious knitter’s envy of everyone else here. I am going to have to get serious about knitting this next year.
Here is a list of what I have left to make, along with pictures of the same I already have:
-
Finish embroidering the tea towels for my grandmother. She lamented that her towels were getting old and thin, and it seems as though I’m the only other one in the family who prefers those over the terry cloth.
-
About 6 bowling ball gazing balls. Luckily those only take me a little over an hour each to make. I’ve started three, but ran out of gems. My first is here
so there is the general idea of them. -
I have to frame about five of these
they’re stitched up and ready to go. -
I have to get started on some more polymer clay ornaments. I’m thinking about doing more like this
and this
and this
but I might have to try something different. -
I love these
as well, and have about twenty more to make.
I also need to finish a border on a baby blanket. She’s due right after the first of the year, and finding the yarn for it was a pain. And I crocheted my heart out. It was my first bigger project ever. I’m in love with it too. I just need to find the time to finish it! And to top it off, my sister and cousin are pregnant and due within a few weeks of each other. The end of June looms closer than I’d like at the moment.
First, I love the “inspirational” cross stitch! Second, you’ve just given me a great idea to make that last month or so of my pregnancy fly by - I’ll knit a newborn-size sweater for the baby! 
Y’all are doing amazing work. The beading and polymer clay are knocking my socks off, and Mirror Image egamI rorriM, that sweater is awesome.
To anyone who feels she is taking too long to complete a project, I submit the fisherman’s afghan I finally finished - after about 12 years. (No, I wasn’t working constantly, just going back to it at loooong intervals.)
Thanks! I’m starting to get over my disbelief that anyone but my mom would like the stuff I made.
Unauthorized Cinnamon, can we see a picture? I’d love to see a 12 year afghan.
I also have massive knitter’s envy. It’s the one craft I’ve always wanted to do, and I suck hugely at it. I’ve had some wonderful teachers but it’s just not happeneing. I’ve wanted to try tatting too. Somehow, I don’t think that will be easier than knitting.
Thanks to everyone who complimented me on my sweater.
monica–the twisted tube is a variation on a simple peyote tube, but instead of sewing on one bead at a time, you sew on two beads at one point and skip a bead at another point–that makes it twist.
I think I’ll make a drapey cotton jersey top for a friend. Gray-blue with gray binding on neck and sleeves. I haven’t figured out the style yet, but it should only take a day or so to make.
I think I’ll make some rice and lavender heating bags for a few people on my list. Practically everyone else is getting homemade candy and cookies. Which I should start making next week. Although I’ll likely make some bead and chaing necklaces, too, for at least a couple of women.
OK, here’s the closeup so you can see the pattern, and me holding the whole darned thing up after finishing it. The great irony is it was a “Mile a Minute” pattern!
BTW, you can always try crochet - that is how I got into fabric arts, and I was terrified of knitting for a long time. But crochet is relatively easy - only one stitch on the hook at a time, rather than carrying all those scary open loops on the needles!
Funny thing is that I’m actually fairly decent at crochet - even without anyone teaching me. I hate it though. The only thing I ever finished (sort of) was a shawl for my mom. It was supposed to be a small afghan. I got irritated halfway through and stopped. It was one of those patterns where you start at a corner and increase each row until the center, and then decrease after the center. She loved it though.
That afghan is seriously beautiful.
I am limiting my crafting for Christmas this year. Really. I will NOT be knitting my way into tendonitis this season. I got tennis elbow from knitting last Christmas – not fun! No way, no how.
So, for my sister, I’m making her a cloche like this one I made for me at her request, and finishing the stole I started last year for her, but had to drop because of the tendonitis. If any of you are on Ravelry, more details are here and here. The cloche pattern is here, and the stole is the Arctic Diamonds Stole from the Winter 2006 Interweave Knits.
For my grandma, I’m crocheting a doily from a pattern pamphlet I found in a thrift store for a whole quarter of a dollar. My grandma used to do a lot of thread crochet, and she buys doilies whenever she sees them, so I think she’ll like it. It is very creatively called the Delicate Doily. I am [, and I think it will turn out much larger than anticipated. My crochet lace skills aren’t up to my knitted lace skills, though, so hopefully no brain implosions happen.
For my mom, I’m crocheting plant frost covers out of baler twine. She read about how the French used to make plant protectors out of braided rope in the 18th century in some history of gardening book, and she’s been mentioning how wonderful a similar thing would be, and couldn’t I make them out of baler twine, since we have so much of it lying around the place? I’m crocheting them because the thought of sewing together braided baler twine makes my fingertips hurt proactively. Honestly, I’m just happy she didn’t ask for world peace this year like she usually does.
For me, I am finally going to finish [url=thermal2 | msmcknittington | Flickr]the sweater](]this far[/url) I started in February, Thermal from Knitty. (Once again, for Ravelers.) I only have a sleeve left to knit, and the placket and neckband. I will wear it to Christmas dinner. Yes, yes, I will.
Yes, that’s it. A small haul compared to the billionty washcloths and mittens I knit last year.
I was planning on making scented glycerine bar soap for people this year, but Ferret Herder has made me want to make sugar scrub instead. Dare I change my plan?
I’ve got 8 more buttons and far too many ends to weave in on a nursing sweater from Louisa Harding’s Natural Knits for Babies and Moms. My cousin is due in early February, so I’ll be giving her that and a baby sweater from One Skein Wonders. I’m also working up a cabled baby outfit in bright red, since this will be a Valentine’s Day baby. I’ve almost finished the booties, although I have to do a bit of frogging on one, myself. The sweater and pants may not be done until after Christmas.
OK, so I know I SAID I wasn’t going to knit presents this year…but A.C. Moore was having a sale on “fancy yarn” and I just couldn’t resist. So new projects:
On the needles: a scarf made from Moda Dea Prima in purple, knitted together with Flutter in a nice lavender color.
Next up: a scarf made from Prima in turquoise, knitted together with Moda Dea Jai Alai in rainbow.
After that, I’m making a little Christmas scarf/collar thing for my dog in Jai Alai holly knitted together with a thicker yarn that I have yet to choose.
Is this the right thread for this?
My housemate just made these “smoking gloves” for me. This pic was taken with a flash and shows more detail. This one without flash but shows the color better, but is blurry. The moss green actually has little bits of of different browns in it.
They’re going to match this sweater once it’s done. The sweater shows a terra cotta type color + grey, but mine’s going to be the same terra cotta + moss green-ish color same as the gloves.
Watcha think?
Hey, very cool levdrakon.
I’ve dropped a few knitting things off my list. Overestimated my speed, underestimated my procrastination abilities. The essential ones are getting done though.
I think for next year I should start in January.
I’ve known Lev’s-knitter for twenty years now and she’s always been pretty good at knitting, but a year ago she joined a knitting group which meets once a week, and I think that’s helped her not only make new friends, but it motivates her to finish the dozen or so projects she has going at any one time so she can show them off to her friends. Plus, she’s semi-retired, which gives her more time.
I am being punished by the universe.
I had only one “mandatory” project. My mother’s family started a grab bag a few years ago. Participation is optional, however if you choose to participate there is only one rule - you must make the gift for your recipient. Cooking doesn’t count.
I barely know my recipient this year (long story) so I made a scarf. I started mid summer. I bought 8oz of merino/soy silk undyed. I dyed it myself. I spun it. I navajo plyed it. I knit it using the “Pallette” pattern from Knitty. It blocked beautifully and was done the first week of December.
Last weekend my mother called me. My brother started a sweater as his grab bag gift back in May, but he procrastinated and it doesn’t look like he’s going to finish it in time. Can I please bat cleanup so my cousin doesn’t go giftless? Now I’m frantically making a hat and fingerless glove (and scarf, time permitting) set for my cousin. I don’t mind so much, but it just figures that the one year I’m not weaving ends on the way to the party I get stuck doing emergency deadline knitting anyway. LeSigh
I don’t have much time at all. Not between working full time and a busy almost 4 year old! But I am part of a knitting group (or rather, my favourite store hosts a stitch n bitch every Tuesday and I go when I can) and I find that I don’t necessarily get lots of knitting done there.
Not between the food, the wine and all the chatter and even sometimes shopping.
Heh. Her “one or two hour” meetings frequently take much longer, and I often wonder what all those innocent knitters are up to. I don’t ask, she doesn’t tell.
But I don’t trust you lot.
Oh, and I’m totally going to start calling her group the “stitch 'n bitch.”
I finished my grandma’s doily a few days ago. See here. I asked her very surreptitiously for starching tips the other day, since she’s the one that taught me to crochet and she’s my usual source for crochet knowledge, and she got really excited about lending me her doily stretcher and starch. As in, she told me not to bother buying starch, she had plenty to give me. So I’ve crocheted some [url=]little things to act as decoys when I go borrow the doily stretcher. Of course, they’re so small that I think I might just grab a doily out of my mom’s cache of old lace things.
Solfy, why doesn’t your brother knit his own penalty gift? I mean, he should be capable of knitting a mitten and hat set if he’s knitting a sweater. Why do you have to cover his ass?