Recent Craftiness

Okay, so this will be sort of a conglomeration of recently finished projects, but I wanted to try posting some pictures and here is my excuse to do that.

First up, is a blanket that I knitted for a friend's baby daughter. The pattern came from Ravelry, and we chose the colors to match the linens in the baby's nursery. I had the yarn and kept looking at different patterns, even starting a couple of other patterns, before settling on this chain-stripe pattern. I loved the completed blanket, and I think it's safe to say that my friend liked it too. Here is the blanket...

First a shot of the whole blanket.

And here is a close-up shot showing the chain stitch detail. This is definitely one of my favorite things I've ever knitted. The longer I worked on it, the more nervous I got about giving it to my friend. I wanted her to love it -- I wanted to be proud and happy when I gave it to her. It had to be just right. And when she saw it, the look on her face made it all worth while. She was happy, and I was thrilled to have been able to make something that her sweet little one can treasure for a long, long time.

I have finally gotten up the nerve (along with my Mom's help) to try using the sewing machine that a friend gave me a few years ago. I've been so nervous about threading it that I just kept putting off trying. (How crazy is that???) Having fallen in love with craft blogs and sewing tutorials, I decided it was time. So I made a couple of scarves (okay, so I made four scarves) using THIS pattern. That gave me the courage to try something else.

Here are my cloth napkins, which I made using a TUTORIAL from Chez Beeper Bebe.

Here is another picture, showing all the prints that I have made so far.

Pretty cool, huh?

Okay, and now my most ambitious project to date, which I made from start to finish yesterday during Gunnar's LONG nap. It is from this TUTORIAL from the blog, From An Igloo. It's an art bag to hold crayons (I love these Crayola Twister's Crayons, by the way) and a coloring book and/or notebook. Can you believe that I actually MADE this all by myself???

Here is a picture of the outside cover.

Now for the inside, which is absolutely brilliant. No lost crayons on my watch!

And, finally, a picture of the proud recipient.

Okay, that's all for now. I'll get the blanket picture uploaded, so that I can post it too.