Merry Christmas!

It's almost here- tomorrow is Christmas Day. It's not as much fun these days without little ones to buy toys for. My guys are grown and want big-boy toys. I miss sitting on the floor and playing. I'm taking a break from doing crafty things for a few days. So I will show off some of the Christmas stitching I've done in the past.

Here is a quilted wallhanging I made many years ago. Since I had never done any quilting before, I took a class called Cookie Cutter Quilt. Of course I had to add an embellishment to each square. I think it turned out pretty good for my first try.

Here is a cross stitched piece called Merry Christmas A to Z by Deborah Lambein. I started it in 1999 and finally finished it in 2000. This created a problem since 2000 did not easily fit in the space allowed for the year. I squished some of the zeros together and made it fit. This piece was the beginning of my love-hate relationship with blending filament. I love the sparkly metallic look the filament adds to an embroidered piece but I hate working with it.

15 inches of snow- Look's like I'm crafting today!

The storm that hit eastern USA yesterday is gone but left 15 inches of snow here. I had a husband and 2 grown sons armed with a snow blower and snow shovels so I decided there was really nothing for me to do... but craft. In my defense- I did 3 loads of laundry and made lasagne to make up for not leaving the house all day.

While cleaning up some craft supplies recently I found the plastic loom frame and bag of fabric loops I bought many years ago for Chris (my oldest son) to make potholders for Christmas gifts for both his grandmothers. He made one set and refused to make any more. I got the potholders that year. I love to cook and they have been used daily for MANY years (after a family discussion we came up with between 12-15 years). But they are worn out and I didn't think they would survive another washing.

I decided to spend part of the snowy afternoon making myself another set. I couldn't find the directions but it I figured it couldn't be too hard since this is designed for children. Wrong! My first one took 3 hours. It came with a plastic hook that kept bending and was almost impossible to use. I decided a large crochet hook would work better but by that time Chris was napping in the room where I keep all my craft supplies and the door was locked. I remembered a piece of heavy copper wire with a hook on one end that I retrieved from the garage trash this summer thinking it might be interesting to use sometime. It was a crude crochet hook but it worked. I wove the loops a different way and the second potholder only took 30 minutes. I wasn't planning on spending most of the afternoon making 2 pot holders but I was determined to finish since all 3 guys were making fun of me.

Here are my new potholders as well as the original set. The one on the left is the one that took 3 hours.

This is the equipment I used. It's hard to see the plastic hook but that's OK since it was pretty useless anyway. I have lots of loops left so I've promised both Chris and Eric a set of potholders as a house warming gift when they finally move out of the house :)

December EBW Challenge

December's EBW challenge theme is Peace & Winter Olympics. Last month there was a tie for first place so we have a combined theme. Please go to the EBW blog and vote between Dec 9 and 15 for your favorite entry.