Doodled Thank-Yous

I have been doing some knitting lately, but haven't taken any good photos to share. I did have to whip up some thank-you cards this weekend, and felt rather uninspired for a while until I just started embellishing the letters on some alphabet stickers that I put on solid-color cardstock. It was actually really fun to add little doodles and I really like the way they came out!



I also have been wanting to learn calligraphy for a while now, and since I'm not quite sure how to go about officially "learning" it, I started off by getting some inspiration from hello handmade, whose work I'm absolutely in love with. I don't think my calligraphy is as awesome as theirs, but I like how it came out!

WIP: Fiddlehead Sweater and FO: Topaz Dress

Woohoo! My thesis is done and my defense is over, so now I am free to craft again! I'm so excited and have already built up a queue of projects to embark on. So far I have started making another item for James's niece, who is due to be born in a few weeks! This time I'm making her a Fiddlehead Pullover, using some greyish-purple bamboo yarn called On Your Toes - it has a nice little sheen to it, and was one of the few fingering-weight yarns made of bamboo that I could find! I have a tendency to pick knitting patterns that are designed for yarns that are nowhere to be found. Bwah. Anyway, this is the finest yarn I've ever used, and it certainly takes forever to make any progress with it! At least a baby sweater is relatively small. Pictures of that WIP coming soon.

Also, I forgot to share a photo of the finished Topaz dress! Here's the dress making its appearance at the baby shower (which I couldn't attend due to distance). Yay!

WIP: Topaz Baby Dress

Sometimes I amaze myself with the horribleness of the photos I take of things I've made. This is only the least blurry one of the batch. Anyway, I finally finished knitting the Topaz dress for Jeanne and Jason's baby, who will arrive sometime this June, I believe. This Malabrigo yarn was SO MUCH FUN to knit with, the colors are vibrant and slightly variable, just making my life that much more interesting with every row I knit. It was also my first attempt at two-color knitting! Does it count as Fair Isle? I have no idea. But it was so exciting to see it work!


I also used the recommended technique of grafting to sew the front and back pieces together at the sleeve strap. It's amazing, you can't even tell it's a seam! These little things totally thrill me. :)


Now all that's left to do is sew up the side seams and send it off to California!

Postcard Swap Belatedly

I finally completed my postcards for iHanna's postcard swap! I was supposed to have them done by Feb 14, but I am a slow crafter, it seems. I could have thrown something together more quickly, but I wanted to try to make some extra-special postcards - so I crocheted something for each one! Actually the part that probably took the longest is those little felt circles with beaded centers. Not trivial. But I love it!

I think I received 9 out of 10 of the postcards I was supposed to get in the swap, and I figure that last lingering one was some slacker like me, who will hopefully follow through on it a few weeks late. It's definitely been fun to see all the variety of postcards people have come up with. Lots of different techniques - stamps, glued fabric, silhouette cutouts, paper scraps, spray paint, stencil, even a photo of a notebook drawing!

And I'm really excited that more than half of my postcards are headed for destinations overseas. How fun to think this crafting community really has no geographic boundaries! Here's the full array of postcards, sorry for the less-than-ideal lighting. It was fun!

Baby Cactus

I'm growing some tiny cacti! I ordered some seeds for cacti and succulents from Park Seed, just because it sounded cool, and planted them all in a tray of sandy soil under a bright lamp. I think the seed of inspiration (pun intended) for this growing endeavor was planted a while ago by some blog posts by Futuregirl, and I had this image of a mini-cactus in my head ever since then! And now they are really growing! They're so tiny, yet so thrilling:

I'm just tickled to see those little prickles growing on the top. And the little arms starting to grow! Hee hee!

Crochet Motif Cards

I have been super slow at posting after I craft things, so here finally is a peek at some crocheting I've been doing haphazardly for some thank-you cards I made after the holidays. It was sort of thrilling to just pick out a random motif from the big green book of crochet stitches I have (I forget its title) and just dive into it with my spare crochet thread. Who am I kidding, all of my crochet thread is spare because I have no real purpose for it! I am just not into making doilies... Maybe in 50 years I will be, I'll let you know. Anyway, here are the first four that I mailed out!

I have a few more in the works... but I love the texture that these tiny threads lend to the card. I wish they made crochet thread in some more interesting colors, no? Like maybe a teal or plum or olive green. Then I would be making cool motif cards left and right!

Christmas Cookie Packages

Before we went to San Diego for Christmas, we baked two batches of cookies to send to James's brother and sister in Lompoc, since we wouldn't be able to make it up to the central coast on this particular trip. We did overbake about a third of each batch (oops!) but at least we got to eat those ones. We picked out the best specimens and packaged them up to mail to the west coast. Of course this gave me a perfect chance to craft up some fancy packaging - I have to say I get as excited about the packaging of most products as I do about the actual product inside! This is especially true of soaps, which often have really gorgeous wrappings, but the thing inside is still... a bar of soap. Anyway, I used some materials in my stash, as well as some sewing machine action inspired by Martha Stewart Living, and put these together! Love it.