After a lovely little cold and some house cleaning, I finally feel like I'm myself again.  For some reason, I feel the need to catch up on some past stuff before I can move on to the new year and future plans.  I forgot a few things that I made for Christmas.  The pictures were still on my camera until this morning.  My siblings and I have a gift giving rotation.  Last year, I tried to finish a quilt that one of my sisters had started.  The top is finished, but I haven't finished quilting it yet.  Maybe by the time the rotation goes around to me having her again?

This year I took another go at finishing an unfinished project for another sister.  Several years ago, she had started working on a wool saddle blanket, like this one.  I knew she had stowed it away in her attic, so sometime in October, I snuck into her house and swiped it.  Sort of.  Actually, I broke a shelf while trying to hoist myself into her unfinished attic access door.  It took some stealthy gluing and sweater rearranging to cover my tracks as well as a more flexible and tall husband to finally get up there and hand down the project.

I also made her some sheep potholders from old sweaters.  I originally planned on making a pillow, like some of these, but I just didn't have it in me.

I found a picture of the ninja suit, which was an even bigger hit than I expected.  Too bad we left the pants at Granny's house.

And here's the football cake that he requested.  The kid didn't pick a theme, unless it was just "BOY".  He wanted a dress-up party with a football cake at a bouncy house place.  So that's what we did.

We've been enjoying this July January weather.  Yes, that is my husband wearing a t-shirt outside in January.  We actually got outside to do the fall clean-up that didn't happen in the fall because winter was here then.

My husband and I celebrated our 8th anniversary.  "Celebrated" gives the impression that we did something special.  We cleaned the bedroom.  It really needed it since that was the dumping place for all Christmas projects and supplies.  He also brought me some flowers and a sweet card, once again proving that we have completely switched places on the card giving spectrum.  I guess "special" is all relative.  He also called me into the office and surprised me by playing 'our song' and dancing with me right there.  That was special to me.

I have a few other things on my mind too, such as trying to figure out why the salt is sabotaging my baking.  Is it possible for salt to be saltier than it should be?  Everything is coming out too salty, no matter how much I cut the salt back.  Maybe I have a little kitchen elf "helping" me...

I'm also needing to go through my pantry and figure out what I need more of, and how much has been used, but I'll probably never get around to that, so don't hold your breath.

Hello 2012!

Wow, the last few months flew by!  I entered my Christmas preparation hibernation sometime in November and I feel like I'm just barely coming out of it.  It seems like once I get a few ideas of things to make, I just can't stop.  Here's a few snatches of what kept me busy for the past two months:

I decided that we really needed Thanksgiving napkins when I found a yard of clearance fabric.  One yard of fabric makes a lot of napkins.  Napkins take longer to make than you would think.  I'll finish the rest next year on Thanksgiving Eve.

Also in the fabric clearance was this cute scrap.  Since my 5 year old girl has grown out of her old apron, I couldn't help making a new one.

Hand puppets are a lot harder to make without a pattern than  you would think, but I had a lot of fun with these.  The old king is my favorite, although I made his outfit too small to fit my hand into.

Since the little one pretends to ride anything she can while yelling Yee-Haw, I thought she could use a stick horse.  I adapted several horses that I found online to achieve this particular breed of old levi and cast off sweater.  Unfortunately, I think it's too heavy for her.  I'll have to make a smaller version for her birthday.

I had to make another one of these for the little one, since I was lazy last year and never did it.  Coincidentally, her stocking matches her horse.

There's a few more things that I don't have pictures for, like the puppet theater and the ninja costume that we put together out of cast off clothing.  I must have been too tired to take pictures of them.  And suddenly, it's a new year and I'm still recovering from the old one.  Hopefully, I'll get all this holiday stuff put away and get my head facing the right direction soon.

Happy New Year!