Happy New Year

From bunnies and humans alike. And look, they DO know how to share sometimes.

Let's hope they continue to share in the next year!

Tea, earl grey, hot and good food and dessert with friends, and then board games.

Presenting the Presents of 2015

I started making presents for real in October this year, because of of the wedding and all, but considering I started quite late I think I did alright.

I have made:

Three sets of mug rugs, four cat heads (two in black and two in white) and one seasonal one (gifted for a birthday in December). Patterns on Revelry here for the cats and egg, flower, pumpkin, the snowflake one I made by myself.

I have made four finished and one half finished ( still hoping to finish the last half soon) wrist warmer and two and a half pairs of socks (one was started by my mother).

The dark grey and red one was made in alpaca after this pattern and was given to my neighbour and friend with a scarf and a lip balm.

The dark grey and lilac one is also in alpaca and the pattern was from Simply Crochet Magazine 11 and the designer is Jennifer Reid, and although I like the pattern and have used it many times it is very time consuming, but luckily for me, I started it in January so I only had to finish one. For my friend Evi.

The other tree is loosely based mostly on this pattern, but a bit from my head too. I gave the grey one to M, the blue ones for my travelling cousin and the blue and grey one will be for my carpenter cousin.

The tree socks are a pattern my friend *Kio gave me that was passed down in her family so I used that on all socks. (the blue pair was started by my mother so I only finished one half of one sock).

I have made four scarfs.

The scarfs are made using this pattern, the red ones were also made in alpaca that I bought on sale, one for our neighbour and one for M's aunt. I think they were well received. The pink/grey and purple  pink ones are made in mohair, the purple pink I bought when my mother's local yarn store went out of business and the pink is from the 80's from my mother's stash, I had to buy the grey because the pink one turned out a bit too small. So another batch of inexpensive but pretty gifts that were fun to make (at least when I didn't have to unravel any mohair stitches that is).

I try to make my gifts because then I can give to almost 30 people and add a small something that fits instead of not giving anything because we live on a limited budget.

My aunt got three washing cloths and a soap. 

Almost everyone got around three trees each this Christmas so I think I made almost fifty in total. I also made this owl in a pattern by Drops. That I haven't given away yet since we didn't see them yet this year, she also gets a Christmas towel, but she likes owls so I hope she likes this little dude. All are made from scrap yarn.

I made two sitting pads for two teenage boys that have a dog, so I think they walk a little, at least now if they do take a walk they can also take a break;) They got a little money on the side. Most of the yarn is scrap, but when you the star is getting bigger you need more yarn for each round so in the end I had to buy more yarn, luckily I was using rather inexpensive Nille wool yarn.

I made four lap blankets, this one for two people, my aunt and her wife, this blanket is made mostly in regular sc and dc, but some x stitches and v stitches thrown in. I made this of scrap wool except the border that I bought. There is even some yarn from our wedding in there.

The bottom blanket was made last year but given to my mother at her 60th birthday, but it was the only picture of all lap blankets I had.

I made three of the lap blankets in the same star pattern I used for the sitting pads, one for my uncle and two for two little boys that we celebrated Christmas with (they also got some money) the pattern is also from here. Mostly made from scrap yarn, but the last rounds used about one skein each so I had to buy a little. So all in all, not too expensive since I use Nille wool yarn again.

Lastly I made 9 hats, three crochet cat hats, pattern from here, for my friend and cousins, and one crochet hat in grey and blue, pattern from here, mine looks a lot different because my gauge was way off. All the males in our family that we celebrated Christmas with got a hat each. My uncle got the crochet one and the rest got knitted ones, M also got a hat.  The other knitted hats are from various Norwegian knitting books but all the knitted hats are made from Nille wool yarn. The black cat is made from reflective yarn that I also got on sale when the yarn store next to my mother went out of business. 

One hat though is a 2014 gift but a 2015 finish, the one for my cousin with a beard, the beard is from here too and the hat is a Tristan from Drops again. 

I am getting better at following patterns and these small finishes help with feeling a sense of accomplishment which is important.

Lastly I made this little dude for my mother, I started this last year, but managed to finish it in time for the holidays. I hope I will be able to do more cross stitching next year. Also I hope to knit more and make cloths for myself as well as presents;)

I hope everyone has had a lovely year and that they liked the presents I gave them.

I do try to give something that fits the person but sometimes I just have to make a pattern because I have a hang up on it and have to find someone to give it to after;) Like with the scarfs.

Today we are celebrating New Year and I have a sinking feeling the last present of 2015, the wrist warmer, won't be finished in time especially since I have been doing presents for next year instead. Oooops. 

Oh well, Happy New Year, I hope next year I will finish all presents within the actual year itself, it might be too much of a stress to hope I will finish all presents in time for Christmas;)

Baking, colouring, crocheting and bunnying around the Christmas tree

Today I had my tea (caramel and vanilla, I am hooked) in my crazy bunny mug that I made almost ten years ago I think.

Also I finished the second to last Christmas gift, the wrist warmers for my cousin. Yay me.

The bunnies gave me this Christmas colouring book for my birthday and I have been having lots of fun colouring, thank you buns. 

For Christmas I got the pink heart tin from our neighbour with glittering sparkles and the bake it easy serving and baking tray from my family-in-law, the gingerbread form thingies in the tin are mine, and the others I gave M for Christmas, and with all this baking things I felt inspired and make more cookies with M.

I even added some pink edible sparkle left over from our wedding in some of them. They were yummy even though M went to the store to buy white chocolate and came home with dark chocolate, his excuse was that the plastic around was white. >.<

The tree is having a hard time with these guys around.

Valmin is quite good at getting to the branches and chewing one off. Mimle usually tries to steal from Valmin or eats his leftovers because she does not work for her food. She is also known to just stare at her human until said human picks some needles from the tree to her. Said human is me, btw, in case you were wondering. 

A close up of the second to last wrist warmers, I really like these, I didn't use any pattern, I just looked at several and made them after my own hands. I hope they fit...

And I have started on present number two for next year;)

Yes, I still have one half wrist warmer left of this year's present making, but my cousin did get his present from last year this year, so isn't that already a tradition?

Thoughts count

M is still home and we are enjoying our time together, today we went to the store to swap some presents, I got a book that I would have quite liked, if I had read the first, but since the store didn't have the first book, I traded it for two knitting books.

 I had to buy the tea we got at my uncles, so today we had caramel and vanilla tea.

I also got two other knitting books for Christmas so this year I better get better at knitting. Which is sort of my New Year resolutions, I think...

 M and I are watching Home alone one and two and they are great at giving me Christmas feelings. But I do think we need to bake more, I have eaten all the good cakes already.

I should finish the last two halves of the two wrist warmers, but instead I started something new. I think this might be for Christmas next year, ( yes I have started thinking about next year when I am not done with this year yet, so what else is new?) but I do love watching Christmas movies and doing Christmas crafting while it is still Christmas, the rest can wait. At least until January starts? I should finish the table runner I almost finished last year too, maybe that is next?

I bought some more yarn to make those hats my family requested I make, for next year, I like it when it actually sounds like my gifts were happily received because I try to give gifts that fit the person, but you can't always succeed, and sometimes you succeed but forgot to think about things (or in this case sequels) so gifts have to be traded. But it is the thought that counts.

Final stretch

Today M and I had a slow day at home with fiddling with some presents again. I had green tea in a mug I made M years ago. The little green alien is him, and I am the pink bunny.

We saw Kaze Tachinu from Ghibli which I gave M, we played some Playstation that his sister and fiancee gave us, which was pretty amusing.

 The glasses in the back were gifted to us by M's parents and I love them, the glasses I mean. We needed a pair of celebratory glasses not for everyday use like our pretty green ones, and these fit with the fine dining pottery.

Something else that we watched which was pretty amusing was this sight: The bunnies having fun with the tree. Since most of the parts they can reach have been munched away we placed their bed beside it, and Mimle finally understood what to do. So now they are both snacking on the tree.

And another present is done and gifted.  I know I am still a bit late, but the person I gifted it too was not sorry she had to wait. She got a scarf and a set of wrist warmers to match. I started the scarf a bit too narrow and ended up starting a second you know which is why I was late, but the narrower scarf was given to someone else who loved their scarf and the bigger scarf fits my friend a lot more.

I have only two halfs of the last two wrist warmers to do. But my cousin who will get one and her brother who will get the other I won't be seeing until late January or so, so I still have time.

And while I am in a Christmassy mood I hope to start some gifts for next year so I won't have to make another mad dash to finish. But I think I will, after all, that is a tradition, and one I quite like, because I always add gifts or people to give things to which is part of the fun^^

I should be able to finish within this year, but I don't have to:)

Third day of Christmas and third Christmas celebration

Driving in the snow. Did I mention that it is snow! Did I mention I love snow?

We are visiting family again, and so I got tea again, caramel and vanilla, it was really good! Did I mention I love tea? I love vanilla and caramel too.

We played card-games, I won first, then me and my youngest female cousin won together. I love winning. Did I mention I like winning but am a very sore loser?

I finished one scarf yesterday and the second one today and I started the matching wristwarmer and finished one. But there is still two halfs to do. Did I mention I like making things? Did I mention I am not that good at finishing things? Did I mention I love starting new things?

Want to see how the finished hat and beard look on the intended person? Quite handsome, and it fits him too. :) Did I mention I like my cousin? My uncle wants one too now. And did I mention my younger female cousin also wants one?

A second Christmas

Another tradition of mine, celebrating Christmas Eve several times.

This time with M's family.

They also have a tree from their yard.

Joulutee from Finland in Finnish mugs. Presents and Christmas cookies.

Hauskaa joulua!