January Round-up

I had a large number of goals for this month in terms of crafting. Here's what I actually got accomplished.

Goals:

The Year of Stash Socks knit-along on Ravelry--St. Brigid's Canomoyle Socks (Rav. link).

One half of one sock in Cascade 220

I'm about ready to start the heel. It's not that I don't like the sock or the pattern, I just get distracted by new, shiny things!

Embroidery Companion Sew Along--Days of the Week teatowels.

Saturday and Sunday pictured on my oven handle

These were pretty fun. The pattern wanted you to enlarge the template 161%, but I didn't want images that big. For the towels, I got plain white toweling from Moda, hemmed them, then sewed strips of gingham fabric to each one to make the checked stripe. I used two strands of DMC cotton embroidery floss (note to self: color #322). I only did Sat. and Sun. but I have enough toweling to do all of the days of the week if I get ambitious. I really like how these turned out, so I might do it. Very satisfying for my first embroidery project!

Then I made a few things that were not part of my goals for Jan. Last weekend I hosted a baby shower and made the decorations:

The honoree, E, is having twins (!) a boy and a girl, so I went with a gender neutral color scheme: orange, green, and yellow (hey, I just noticed most of the food fit into that scheme, totally not planned). I made the banner, little cupcake picks that said twins, some tissue paper flowers and some yarn pom-poms. E is in my knitting group and the party was for knitters, so for a shower activity, we made these:

Christine's Stay-on Baby Booties

I've got one done and the other just needs a cuff. Then I need to make the i-cord ties. I just used leftover sock yarn. They take a little over 20g of yarn.

I have very little handmade dishcloths. I've decided I need to fix that.

Finally, I made these wool soakers (pictured below on top of the afghan my mother made for my wedding gift) for another person in my knitting group who had her baby a couple of weeks ago and is using cloth diapers. It's the Curly Purly pattern. They knit up pretty quick in this beautiful yarn, Shepherd's Wool which is soft and dreamy. I knit the small size for both, one with butt shaping and one without. Hopefully she gets some good use out of them!