Thank you AfricanKelli for the much needed nudge back into posting. :)

Things have been quiet around here recently - i’m not sure why, though i’ve been in a ‘not wanting to answer the phone’ phase for the last few days, so i guess i’ve been giving myself some quiet time away from everything.  *shrugs*  There is some family stuff going on - nothing serious, just older family members getting older. but it’s sad and makes me insular and introspective, (not very affective coping mechanism of choice.)

Regardless it’s time to rejoin the human race. i’ll work on posting more. i mean, i actually have things to post.

So two weeks or so ago i made a couple of bags for two friends’ birthdays.

I based them on this pattern, from a book my sister bought me for christmas.

Unfortunately because i ended working on this till after i was supposed to leave to see them, the photos i have are blurred and in rubbish light, (because it’s january and it was late afternoon.)

The bags were really fun to make, and i’ll definately make some more, preferably not when i’m up against a self imposed time limit so that i can noodle around with them a bit more and at more details in.  since both of the friends in question are knitters both bags automatically became knitting bags, and the three of us knitted our way through A Knights Tale and the Shakespear Retold Taming of the Shrew, with Rufus Sewell in it, much to the amusement of my sister, who is not a knitter, but who is an incredible craft person in her own right.

In other crafty news i have finished two jumpers (though one needs a button sewn on properly, not in the cackhanded way i managed when i first did it - i rushed. :( ), am well on my way to finishing a cute pair of baby slippers to send to my godmother, who has just become a grandmother for the first time \o/, and i have a secret project that i can’t talk about, but i’m excited about, and well eventually talk about… but not yet. shhhhh

I’ve had a live journal account for about 4 years now, so i know how their comment system works.

you login and and make a comment on someone’s lj post and then get an email telling them. then they can directly comment back to you, and the comments are threaded, and you get an email letting you know. and so it goes, back and forth.

Now i’m pretty sure typepad doesn’t work like that, which is leaving me feeling a little stuck. when someone comments here i’d like the respond, even if it’s only to say thank you. should i email the person? if i edit their response to add my message underneath their’s, will they know? if i comment on my own post, in reply to their’s will they know?  i just don’t know.

it’s just that it would be nice to get into a few little conversations about craft things with people. the people who comment are all people i admire and am inspired and impressed by, but i don’t seem to be getting over this hump.

am i missing something obvious about the typepad comment system? 

i need to go back and figure it out. :(

I really should have posted this picture weeks ago, but christmas kept me away from typepad.  These are a pair of button wreaths i made from the hospice shop button stash, having been influenced by the holiday issue of Martha Stewart Kids, and… wow i’m behind… and now i’m waiting for everyone’s pages to load…

Anyways sadly, they never went up because i didn’t buy a tree, but they are in the box with all the decorations i pilfered from mum’s, ready for next year. (going through mum’s decorations was great. i found all these tiny knitted socks that i can barely remember knitting, and these painted clay shapes that my sister made, and our little plastic and wool needle points, and bwahahah i kept them all and will have great fun next year trimming a tree and adding to the collection with new crafty things.)

I didn’t make this. It was on the back of the zip-up cardigan i bought my niece for christmas.  i love the felt and the embroidery and the knitted base it’s on.  and since this is the year of knitting (and even - shock horror!) designing garments, it inspires me to add more detail into my work.  :)

(The cardigan was from Next).

And continuing on the knitted garment theme - i’m knitting myself this, using Jo Sharp luxury 8ply dk pure wool, in paris (light blue) and parchment (grey green).  Some how i managed to knit the back piece in one day! and since i’m off to SnB tonight, i’m guessing the front will well be on it’s way by the time i get home. Add to that a couple of long bus journeys this weekend, to see friends in London and i could have the jumper finished in a week. :) Of course knitting on US8’s helps. 

In knitting it, i have learnt how to make a tubular cast on, which i think i have fallen in love with. i’m planning to use it on various pairs of socks, amongst other things. :)

W’s mum asked for slippers at christmas. I had knitted her partner D, a pair last winter, since he tends to have cold feet, and since she has started to borrow them for herself she asked if she could have her own pair.  no problem!

The fuzzyfeet pattern from knitty is great and i’ve made numerous pairs over the last couple of years. in fact the first non-felted socks i made were also based on the same pattern, using double knit wool and 4mm needles.  It taught me everything i needed to know about knitting socks and is a great starting place. i pimp it to lots of people.

Anyways i decided to use maya, since it’s great yarn (and - it turns out, fair trade, which is another reason not to discontinue it!) and it turned out lovely.  i needed about 1 1/2 skeins, knitted up like a dream, and once it was felted kind of looped, a bit like Cashmerino astrakhan.

And now i find out they’re discontinuing Maya. :(   so buy it up folks while you can.

In other knitting news i finally finished my long sleeve picovoli (which i started in september, and put on hold because of our wedding and then christmas.)  when it finishes drying i’ll take photos, but even pre-blocked i’m really happy with it.  

I have a stack of projects to show (though sadly, i never managed to photograph all of them in the rush up to christmas day.)  But since i seem to be procrastinating getting all of them together I thought i’d start the ball rolling with one right now, just before bed.

This is the brewing apron i made for my husband, W as part of his christmas present.  Unfortunately the photograph isn’t great - the pocket is denim. actually the whole other side is also denim, and the apron is totally reversable (with a pocket on that side and everything) so it can suit his mood. He is a very good, and very enthusiastic home brewer, and has just shifted over to full mash brewing, rather than kits, which takes alot longer, and is alot messier (hence the need for an apron), but allows him greater control, and the option to make his brew sugar free, and thus lower in alcohol.

he didn’t have a clue about it until he opened it, and then he proceeded to wear it every day during our time away over the holidays.  i think this means it’s a hit!