Christmas | On My Needles

2012 brought about great ambition with biting off a little more than I could chew. While anticipating the arrival of our little girl, I underestimated how much time and energy I would need to craft or knit. With that said, here’s the tally

Goal Completed

-Create 5 patterns (only 2 being dishcloths) -2 completed

-Knit each family member a Christmas gift -I nixed this in June

-Complete 15 projects -11 completed

While I didn’t complete all my goals, I definitely made strives towards them. I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish, especially since I was able to introduce a few new skills and creative endeavors into my repertoire.

This year, I would like to create at least 3 patterns, knit Christmas gifts for at least 5 family members, and complete at least 15 projects. I’m due in June so I have a feeling most of these will get finished before then! Another goal I would like to accomplish is knitting a few projects for baby Kramer. We found out this past Friday we’re having a boy, so I’d like to knit some hats, booties, and such for him.

Since I last posted, I’ve started a few and completed a few projects. I finished knitting the Peapod Nagini and love it! It’s a great size to throw in the diaper bag and large enough to hold a wallet, keys, and essentials. After using the bag, I realized it must be lined. I was hoping to get around that because I have yet to figure out how to line a purse properly (YouTube here I come!), but unfortunately, that’s just not a possibility. The bottom stretches completely down whenever anything is placed inside.

After I received my newest Knit Simple Magazine last summer, I saw that there was a KAL with Vickie Howell for an adorable beanie. I made the Skull Version for Andy out of Sheep(ISH) in Gun Metal(ISH) and the Slouchy version for myself in Sheep(ISH) in Plum(ISH). They were both quick knits and I’m totally in love with them!

(It’s much snugger on Andy’s noggin.)

So in love with the beautiful purple!

While on vacation in September, Kristi came across Caron’s Simply Soft Party yarn in a fun pink and turquoise colors and immediately begged to have a scarf made out of them. I’m using the Kudo Waves Scarf pattern from Plymouth Yarn Studio and it’s turning out amazingly well.

(The colors are brighter and have sparkles.)

I’m about 55% finished and hope to have it finished by the end of this month.

I also started a pair of socks out of the Serenity Garden yarn that’s been sitting in my stash. They’re turning out very pretty and are knitting up pretty quickly. You can check them out here.

As for my non-knitting endeavors in 2012, I didn’t have many more than those posted earlier this year. For Christmas, I decided to make a homemade gifts for all the ladies in my family and a few close friends. I made a homemade spa kit including lotion, lip gloss, bath salts, a heating pad, and microfiber facial scrubber (that I didn’t make). I found most of the ideas on Pinterest (one of my new loves). The most expensive part of the whole project was the containers to put everything in. I bought 8 oz/150 ml jars for the lotion and small jelly jars (4 oz) for the bath salts. I used some leftover fabric and rice to make the heating pads. Here are links to the tutorials:

My tweaks:

Lotion – I used lavender scented baby lotion found at Dollar General (I actually prefer this to Baby Magic or the Great Value brands) and 3.75 ounces of solid coconut oil that I found at Dollar General. Using less coconut oil than called for in the original recipe made it less greasy IMHO. I also love the way the lavender, vitamin E cream, and coconut oil smell together and the lotion feels great!

Bath salts: Instead of using regular epsom salts, I used lavender scented ones, thus eliminating the need for essential oils. These turned out great! They smell wonderful (very powerful out of the jar means a nice aroma at bath time) and are so easy to make!

Heating Pad: I used rice instead of lentils and made mine smaller. Also, instead of putting all the rice in at one time, I did it section by section and used pins to block off the rice when sewing. When I attempted my first one, I didn’t like how large it was and I had a devil of a time trying to sew each section without getting the rice caught under the needle. I found that doing it section by section allows for each section to be perfectly even with the others. I did not add any scent to the rice because I know from personal experience that what I think smells good or awful will be the exact opposite of someone else. I used card stock and ribbon around the jar lids and made directions tags which included the ingredients. Here’s the finished product, minus wrapping:

I’m going to do a separate post later in a tutorial-type fashion for how I did each part.

My next endeavor will be to make some bibs for Trin and new baby out of old t-shirts. I have a whole bag of Andy’s nicer ones that he no longer wears.

Well that’s about it for now. Until next time, much love and many blessings!
♥Courtney♥

This year has been a hardship on so many people financially, including us. While I should have realized this many moons ago, it’s really hit me this year that Christmas-time really isn’t about what you get your friends and family or how much money you spend on them but about the thoughtfulness of the gift. I had a few ideas on how to make our Christmas more economical for our family like knitting each person something (I have a ton of yarn in stash) but then realized that I really don’t have the time to do that. Well, I got a flyer in the mail at the beginning of December from Giant with some great gift ideas that are easy to whip up, creative, and inexpensive. One of those was to make a jar with a drink mix like hot chocolate or cappuccino. I liked that idea but couldn’t find a recipe that sounded “perfect”. I did some research online and found a fantastic recipe for homemade cinnamon pancakes. Now, my family and I all adore pancakes so this seemed like the perfect gift. The other bonus is that I already had all the ingredients so I only had to purchase the jars. That wasn’t so bad either because Kmart still has canning jars and Andy gets a discount. 🙂 So I decided to use my Cricut to make gift tags for each. Here’s a picture of a few of the tags:

I’m a total sucker for crafting and have a habit of keeping all cards I get throughout the year. I decided to use my previous years’ Christmas cards as backgrounds for the instructions. I have to admit that they turned out fantastically. I used crafting scissors to make the edges more fancy:

To dress up the jars a bit, I used some of my scrapbooking ribbon around the lid rims and regular present ribbon around the jar to hold the tags in place. Here’s the finished product:

I’ve made a total of 12 jars so far and have about 6 or 7 more to make. I also tried the pancake recipe and it is fantastic! I’m excited to give a thoughtful and personalized gift without having to spend an arm and a leg.