Embroidery: Christmas Tea Towels

 This was a Christmas project that I had wanted to do for many years but I actually finished them this year.  I bought the tea towels about 3 years ago but I didn't really have any specific designs in mind.
Then I found the book, Doodle Stitching The Holiday Motif Collection Embroidery Projects & Designs to Celebrate the Seasons, by Aimee Ray.  I love all of the designs.

 I ended up making 4 towels with this design for my family.

This is a close up of the side embroidery for the Peace Joy Love tea towel.

Knitting: Febrary Fitted Pullover by Amy Herzog

This is the February Fitted Pullover pattern by Amy Herzog.  It's a free pattern on ravlery.  Mine is made from a cotton yarn.  I ended up doing a row of single crochet around the neckline as it was a little droopy and now it's perfect.  I really like this sweater.  Very nice pattern.  I made the sleeves starting from the top with short rows instead of adding them latter.  I hate seaming so this was great.  The only seaming I did was at the shoulders as I knitted in the round from the bottom up.

Knitting: Agatha Sweater- blue

 This was my first Agatha sweater pattern by Andi Satterlund.  I didn't have enough yarn to make long sleeves so mine came out 3/4 length.

 This is the back of the sweater.  I really loved the whole design of this sweater.  This was an extremely well drafted and thought out sweater.

 Detail of the back.  I loved everything about this sweater.  You start at the back then work the front from the top, then join everything below the armholes, then you add the sleeves from the top with short rows.  That means there are no seams! Yeah!  Love, love her designs and highly recommend her!  I have since made a black one with the full length sleeves.  I love it.  I didn't know if I would like the cuffs to be so long but they are great.  Also, this is a very warm sweater in wool, despite the lacework.

Knitting: Striped Socks

I've done many socks but these were my first two-at-a-time toe up socks.  I did them on two circular needles instead of one really long one.  I used up my stash of grey and blue yarns and they were the perfect length.  Turning the heal was a little different but I really like doing socks this way.

Knitting: Men's Mini Herringbone Scarf

This is the Men's Mini Herringbone Scarf pattern from the Purl Bee.  This is leftover oatmeal wool yarn.  It's 8.5" wide and 72" long.  I altered the pattern by using 35 instead of 55 stitches.  I really like the pattern.  The herringbone is on the front and the back is all purls. 

Knitting: Scarf

 I was trying to find when I made this scarf, I know it was this year and I'm pretty sure I made it in June or July.  I was trying to find the pattern for it and I can't right now.  I know it was really easy and I wanted a really long scarf to wrap around my neck several times.  Up until now, it hasn't been warm enough to wear it.  It's really comfortable and warm.

Duct Tape Costume: Peter Pan Costume

Here's my daughter's Duct Tape costume this year.  It was Peter Pan themed.

I used the cricut Disney cartridge for these images.  For some reason I had a real problem with scaling everything so I was very glad to be finished with it. 

Halloween Costume: A Flock of Flamingos Costume

We were in target before Halloween, when my son saw this flamingo hat and immediately said he wanted to be a flamingo for Halloween.  I said sure, this will be great but what's better than one flamingo but to be a whole flock.  It just so happens that the awesome book I had been doing things in, Stitched Safari, by Tomomi Maeda had a flamingo pattern in it.  So 11 flamingos, a pink turtle neck, and flamingo hat latter, we had a flock of flamingos costume.  This was taken at the OKC zoo.  They have a haunt the zoo that we go to every year.  At each stop he kept say, "I'M A FLOCK OF FLAMINGOS!"  One of my favorite costumes for him.  He will still occasionally wear the hat.

Here's a closer look at the flamingos.

Here's a better view of the hat.

Crafting: Felt Rhinoceros

This is the rhinoceros from the book, Stitched Safari, by Tomomi Maeda.  I made him as my sewn toy for the OK State Fair this year.  He was a lot of fun to make.

I love her patterns as they are like puzzle pieces.  Each one fits perfectly in to the next one.  This is an amazingly well drafted book.

He even has a cute behind.

Crafting: Cardboard Car

Ok, I didn't do this, my husband did and it turned out really cute.  My son's Prek4 class was having a drive in movie and everyone had to bring in a cardboard box car.  My husband was all over this and came up with this classic design.

If you look closely, the head ornament is a chess knight's piece he painted silver.

This is what the Oklahoma license plates look like, so I customize it.

Crafting: Operation Incognito

I made this in August for my son's friend.  It's a wonderful pdf pattern called Operation Incognito.  You can make all of these types of mustaches and beards.  They are made from felt and there is also the pattern for the envelope and you can make the printout for the mustaches. 

Crafting: Button Bouquet

 I saw on another blog, a beautiful button bouquet.  My son is getting married in January and so I made this. You do need to have a lot of buttons and if you get a pack that has coordinating buttons, you can go to town with stacking and wrapping your buttons.  I purchased the holder and then added all the stems at one time.  I didn't count how many stems I have but it's around 100.

Craft: Shark! McCall M7103

This was one of my favorite projects of late.  This is from the McCall's pattern M7103 view b, the tiger shark.  It's a very easy pattern to follow.  With the amount of fabric they require, I was actually able to make two sharks.  This is a very LARGE shark and it's not even the big one.  It takes 2 large bags of polly fill and it's like a body pillow.  This was a birthday present for my son's friend and we just had it wrapped in paper so everyone was very curious to see what it was going to be.  I also made a pillow case with the child's name on it to go with this gift.  Great pattern to try if you ever wanted to make a shark.  I made this on October 17, 2015.

Crafting: Felt Goat

I taught a sewing class at my son's school this year and one of our projects was to make an animal from the terrific book, Stitched Safari 18 Adorable Animals to Make with Felt, by Tomomi Maeda.  The teacher next door really liked what they were doing and asked me if I could make her a goat.  So here she is.

She stands about 4 inches.  Luckily I had some curly yarn that was perfect for her goatee.  I made this one in September.

Crafting: Zombie Pins

These were birthday presents for my two sisters.  I made them into pins.  They are from the wonderful book, Zombie Felties How to raise 16 gruesome felt creatures from the undead, by Nicola Tedman & Sarah Skeate.  Each of these pins are 2" tall.  I made these in October, so they were late for one of my sister's birthdays but early for the other one.

Pumpkin Head

Thrilla

Vampire Zombie

Zombie Undertaker

Pirate Zombie

Classic Zombie

Zombie Bunny

Knitting: Baby Layette

This was knitting entry for the OK State Fair, Infant Crisis Pregnancy category.  I've made a ton of these as they are really easy but look complicated.  It won best of show.