Wait! I'm Not Done Yet!

What to do? The Old Year is slipping further and further away and as much as I want to wish you a Happy New Year, I haven't finished talking about 2007 yet! Ack! I love seeing so many "year in review" posts on all of your crafty blogs and I intend to join in on the fun, I just need to share a few more things so that they too can be reviewed. So I believe I've got three more items to share which means ETA of "Liz Harvatine Shows You All of the Stuff She Made in 2007" is Saturday, January 5. That's not so bad!
Today's gift:

Neck warmer for my Mamacita. The pattern is from Knitty. I used some sort of Merino, I'm sorry I don't know what, but it was very soft and squishy. This baby was pretty fast and fun to make and, I think, an elegant alternative to bulky scarves.

Mother and Baby

*Oops, not McCalls, the pattern is Butterick 4944.*

More Christmas gifts...bear with me.
On my last full day of Christmas crafting before returning to work, I was feeling short on time and short on ideas. There are a couple of ladies in my life who needed gifts but I just hadn't come up with the perfect fit for them. The longer I spent brainstorming ideas the shorter my list of possibilities became. There was much pressure to pull the trigger on something, just to get the ball rolling. Yeeps...stressful! But in the midst of gift making panic, I found some calm in an old familiar pattern.

The "mother" is a (I think) McCall's pattern that I first used for a traveling bag last Spring. The "baby" is my own smaller version of the pattern that I had made for a much needed Summer purse.

Didn't someone say that marathon gift-making is not the appropriate time for trying out new patterns? Well I certainly can't say that I adhere to that rule but it sure does feel good to make something familiar. You don't have to keep double checking instructions, you know which steps can be glazed over and you know exactly how it's going to turn out. These two bags just flew through my sewing machine.

A happy Christmas

Alright! We've done it. Christmas is over and it was great. Harv and I are in Minnesota, spending the holidays with his family. So you know what time it is...it's time to share more handmade gifts, now that they have all been given. My sister gave me a hard time because she saw this shopping bag on my blog before receiving it. How about that? She reads my blog! Who knew?
So now that it's safe, here's the full body shot of the sneak peek I gave you earlier.

It's a western shirt for Harv's mom, Dar. Along with being a very crafty lady, Dar is a bit of a cowgirl at heart. The pattern is McCall's (I'm sorry I don't have the number!) and the embroidery patterns are from Sublime Stitching.

AND, guess what Harv got me for Christmas!

A MacBook Pro, and just in the nick of time! My old laptop is crapping out big time. So Merry Christmas to you and Merry Christmas to me too!

Charming Handbag

One of the gifts I completed on Sunday:

It's the Charming Handbag from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. This baby came together super fast. And I do mean baby. It's so much tinier than I though it would be! This could be my fault though. I didn't feel like scanning and resizing the pattern piece so I just figured out how big it would be at 129% and drew it myself. Have I mentioned I was a math major? And have I also mentioned that math and arithmetic are really not the same thing? I'm good at the former, stinky at the latter. So my bag might be a bit smaller than intended, but I think that only increases its charm.
Be warned that the measurements for the handle and casing pieces are not included in the book. They can be found here at the book's Flickr group along with other errors. Reading through the comments about this pattern I saw that someone suggested making buttonholes through the lining in stead of making the casing. I thought that was an ingenious idea.

The casing pieces seemed impossibly small and I think this just looks neater, not to mention they were quicker and easier.

Sneaky Peek

It is eleven o' clock, my reinstated bedtime. Today was my last day of hiatus. Boo. But what a day it was. I managed to knock out three handmade gifts today. Three! And not simple shortcut gifts either, three gifts that I am very proud of and excited to give, two of which I kind of don't want to give, I want to keep them for myself.
I love the third gift too, and to be honest, it is the gift I am most proud of, it's just not quite my taste. I do think that it suits the tastes of it's recipient though. I really really hope so, because although I finished this baby today, it's been a long time coming! I don't want to share the whole gift just yet but I will give you a little sneaky peek.

With this unexpected burst of productivity I'm feeling much more relaxed about working this week but it's still sad to see my dear friend hiatus leave me yet again. The good news is my other friend Christmas break is going to be here real soon.

Gift for Who???

I've decided to share a few of the Christmas gifts I'll be making this year, before they are given. The reason for this is that I'm not working right now and hiatus tends to be a time when I can really devote a lot of effort to not only my crafts but also my blog. I like to share with you all! Once the gifts are given, I will be back to work with not so much free time. Also, I'm sad to say that I have serious doubts about the regularity with which most of the people I will be giving gifts to read this blog. You know who you are. Although you're probably not reading this so you don't know that I know you know who you are.
So, completed gift number one:

A very stylish reusable shopping bag. Made from this pattern, this was a fun and easy knit. My one complaint with this pattern was this line: " Use a very stretchy bind off like Lucy Neatby's Modified Conventional bind off [see Lucy's Knitting Essentials DVD volume 1 for a detailed how-to]". Come on! Just teach me a stretchy bind-off, or at least tell me where I can learn one without buying a DVD. I did a search online and ended up using and Elizabeth Zimmerman bind-off that I found here.

I used Tahki Cotton Classic in Linen White instead of the hemp yarn called for in the pattern. I was much too impatient to order anything online.

The handles are gross-grain ribbon with some cotton twill tape as a lining. I sandwiched the edge of the bag between the two and machine stitched them together. I also classed it up a bit by using this pretty ribbon for the draw string, rather than a cord.

Isn't that neat? It folds into itself so you can keep it with you. I dig it and I certainly hope its recipient does as well.

Sunday Up-D's

Christmas is fast approaching and the end of our hiatus is coming even faster. I have much that I hope to accomplish in the next week or so.
As of right now, our tree is up and looking fabulous, even more so than last year with the addition of some sweet little Martha Stewart ornaments bought at Macy's, including this tree topper. (Sorry for the teeny image...I guess you can no longer buy it online.)
I also have for the first time, my own little craft room tree.

Fake trees go against every little bit of Christmas spirit that resides in my soul, but a little baby bonus tree is a clear exception to that rule. I also don't have the heart to leave certain ornaments in a box in favor of stylish themed ornaments. But again, baby trees give a little creative outlet without forcing me to abandon Harv's extensive collection of Donald Ducks and Packer hat wearing mice (although we do prune those down, just a bit). Of course the only craft room tree theme that I have going on this inaugural year is "Box of ornaments I bought at Target four years ago." But they're so tiny and sweet! And if it weren't for them, this baby would probably be naked.

In addition to Christmas gifts, I'm nearing completion on this brand new quilt, made for a certain brand new baby.

And to go with the quilt, a trio of bibs, made from the pattern in Bend-the-Rules Sewing.

I did nothing to jazz these up at all. I was looking for some sort of mindless crafting that I could complete relatively quickly, thus making me feel better about myself one night, and these fit the bill. If you know a baby and you need a crafty pick-me-up, make one.

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.

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.