Robo-Christmas

We had robots popping up left and right this Christmas. My favorite being this silk screened robot ornament that I made for my mom as well as several friends. He's saying "Merry Christmas!" in robot. I had a great picture of the whole pile of them, about 16, but I accidentally formatted the memory card in my camera, losing that as well as all of my pictures from Christmas Eve and Day. I don't know why I did it. I'm usually not that stupid.
Anyway, this is just one of several silk screened gifts that I made this year. It was my first foray into silk screening so I will expand upon that in a later post.
As for the other robots, we went to Old Navy on Christmas Eve and bought the three most amazing rolls of wrapping paper I have ever seen, covered in red and green robots. And they were 70% off! Of course I took great pictures of all of the gifts we wrapped in this paper that were erased in the formatting disaster. Luckily enough, I was able to find, on the Old Navy website, a picture of the matching robot boxer shorts that I also bought for Harv!

Photo Removed

This way I don't have to post a picture of Harv wearing the boxers. Although he did put them on over his pajamas on Christmas morning so I guess that wouldn't be so bad.

Christmas At Last

Well, what a delinquent blogger I have been. The Harvatine Empire as a whole has been suffering this holiday season. The good news is all of the gifts have been given and now I can share! I plan to spread things out a little bit. I don't want to blow my wad in one post.
To start things off, a frame for my good friend Niamh.
This was modeled after a pattern in "Denyse Schmidt Quilts" but I didn't actually use the pattern. I really love Denyse Schmidt's fabric choices and combinations. They have such a random, haphazard look to them but there is a lot of thought and theory behind each piece. I have discovered this because when I try to imitate her style in a way that actually is random things never really come out very well. I like the fabrics that I used for this but I was strictly using what I had. My stash isn't quite big enough to totally emulate Denyse Schmidt but I try.

Niamh's gift to me was a copy of "Mason-Dixon Knitting" which I excitedly told her over lunch (before she gave it to me) Harv had given me for Christmas! I am sure she was disappointed but I think that it is just great. Here is why: Harv gave me the book because I had it on my Amazon wishlist. I put it on my wishlist because Niamh had been raving about it so I knew it must be good! And here comes Niamh, trying to share this great find with me and I have, in a way, beat her to it! I think it's very sweet. And I am very much enjoying the book.

Secret Crafting

Well, I had quite a busy weekend. The only thing I did besides work on Christmas gifts was go out to dinner on Saturday night and spend three hours at Jo-Ann's buying supplies for my gifts. That was definitely rough.
I initially thought that I would have so much to post about this month, beign in craft overdrive as I am, but I don't want to put up pictures of anything that I'm making in case people try to sneak peeks! I htought I would be making more Christmas crafts for myself but the time really got away from me and I have to spend every spare moment on gifts. I'm a little stressed out but I think that everything will get done. I am trying very hard to prioritize and make sure that I finish everything that needs to be done at home in my craftroom before I tackle the more portable projects. It's tough. I am enjoying it though and I can't wait to be able to post pictures of everythings I'm working on. I should probably be more concerned about finishing them first.

In No Particular Order

Strips of fabric for my Christmas tree skirt. I cut a bunch of strips of different widths and whatever length the fabric I was using would allow. I've started to sew them together into 4 foot long strips. I thought that I would be able to arrange them randomly but I think it's going to require more planning than that. So I am going to make enough strips and then rearrange to my heart's content on my little felt wall here. I think I need more solids.

Knitting tonight!

For the first time in a loooong time I am going to knit with a friend! I am teaching my friend Melissa to knit tonight. Wish us luck!
In other news, we picked Secret Santa names at work today. I have a great gift idea for the person I got. I don't want to say anything about it here in case he/she reads this but I will definitely post about it after it's been given.
Fingers crossed I get my Spaceboy and Robot book tonight!

Christmas Yays and Nays

Our Christmas tree has been half naked for the last week, with only lights and popcorn strings. Last night we finally mustered up the energy to hang the ornaments and here it is!
Missing of course is the topper that I set out to make yesterday. That was a total failure. So there is no topper yet.


I was also hoping to make a new quilted tree skirt to match the topper but that didn't get done yet either so I resigned myself to putting out our old crocheted skirt. I don't know who made it but Harv's sister has the same one on her tree. I am not giving up on either of these projects though. Perhaps tonight. That is unless the mailman brings me something special today! If so, Christmas projects may go on hold for a night or two.

Trying to get my Christmas Motor Running

Last weekend when we came home from Minnesota I was all fired up to start decorating for Christmas. We got a tree, hung the lights and I stuffed these Christmas pillows that I made in MN.
That's pretty much as far as we got. One week back at work and two colds later (one for each of us) the ornaments are not hung and my big plans for a tree skirt and topper to match the pillows have not gotten off the ground. This is my problem:

My craft room is a total pig sty. I can't even tell you the effect that having a clean organized space to work has had on my productivity. And when that space gets all cluttered I come to a grinding halt. So first project is to tidy up in here...then on to Christmas!

Second Anniversary

Harv and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary almost a month ago and I just now took pictures of the gift I gave him, my third quilt! When I first heard that the traditional second anniversary gift is cotton I thought I would knit Harv something out of cotton yarn. But that was before my new obsession with quilting had really taken hold.

I came up with the design for this quilt while trying to think of math themed quilts. (Math is my former love and I sometimes feel bad for abandoning it) The idea of using an infinity motif didn't really push the limits of my mathematical knowledge but it occured to me that the symbol could be very meaningful on a quilt for Harv, what with the infintie nature of our love and all.

The quilt is made up of 20 12 inch squares of blue stripes. I sewed all of the squares together first, then cut apart six of them to inset the infinity pieces. I had a little bit of trouble sewing the curves at first but I figured out a few things and was really quite surprised and pleased with the way it turned out. Afterwards, I embroidered a message next to the infinity symbol. It's a teensy bit hard to read but the overall message is "Infinity + 2 = years I will love you".

Well, well, well.

Here it is, my first official Lady Harvatine post. Because I am so anxious to get this baby going I am launching the site in a state of semi-completion. But that's ok. It's starting with a wimper instead of a roar.
So, this is a place for me to talk about all of my crafting endeavors and hopefully a tool to keep me inspired. At the right there are links to pictures of things I've made and my Etsy shop, links to other crafting sites that I enjoy as well as the obligatory links to the rest of the Harvatine empire.