Being Crafty

So I thought I would post about what keeps me from making the time to keep up with this blog (and any progress on my other blog as well). I can sum it up in one word: Projects! Let me just say, before you even ask, I am a busy person between the hours of 8PM and midnight. I stay up way too late and should use the time to exercise, but oh well. I enjoy it. :)

The fall I was pregnant with Isaiah, I took a knitting class with a friend. I'm not sure why. Both of us have a mutual friend who knits and we both at some point must have expressed an interest in learning to knit. It was just one of those random things that actually happened. Unlike all those other random things you also want to learn how to do and never manage to find the time. So, it was a four week beginners course, we met for a couple hours on Saturday mornings. There were only three of us in the class so there was a lot of personal attention, which is how I learn the best. When I finished the class I had the basic skills to knit but didn't really have any inspiration to actually start any sort of project. That is until Christmas, when my sister gave me a book of knitting patterns to make stuffed animals and a bunch of yarn. The rest, as they say, is history. Knitting the animals has given me the practice I need to develop better skills and as I go, I use youtube to learn new techniques.

Since then, I have made an elephant, and a mini elephant, a snake, a hippo and most recently I made a giraffe for a good friend of mine who just had a baby girl. I have also made a pair of fingerless gloves, started (but never finished) a hat, and recently became a member of ravelry.com so I could search for free patterns. Thanks to ravelry, I adapted a couple different patterns to make an owl ornament that I gave to a few people for Christmas. My most exciting Christmas present this year? Some yarn, crochet hooks, and a book on how to crochet, my newest interest. I'm becoming quite the knitting nerd. Or 80 year old women. Whatever.

So that's, that about knitting.

Over the month of December a completely different project has been consuming my evenings. An advent calendar. For years, even before I had Isaiah, I've wanted to create an advent calendar for my family to use year after year. I began with just the simple idea of a felt tree that you hang on the wall and pin ornaments to. But I wasn't sure what those ornaments would be and I wasn't sure how I wanted to hang a tree. I googled DIY advent calendars, scoured Pinterest and finally found what I was looking for. I got most of my inspiration from these three blogs:

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2010/12/advent-complete.html
http://katieemrich.blogspot.com/2010/12/advent-complete.html
http://bigklittleg.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-felt-christmas-tree-advent-calendar.html

I mostly needed inspiration for the ornaments because I already had an idea in mind for the body of the calendar. Although if you look at the second blog, I LOVE the way she did her tree with multiple colors of green. And I did change the way I did my pockets. I was originally going to make them out of red fabric and write the numbers with a fabric pen. I'm so glad I took the time to stitch the numbers.

I put velcro on the back of my ornaments. I like the idea of Isaiah and any future sibling being able to choose where they hang the ornament rather than having set buttons around the tree to hang them on. I also used batting and tied and bound the piece like a comforter. It gives it more of a wall hanging feel and I love the back fabric. Just a random remnant that I picked up not intending it for anything to do with this project. I love when that happens. I tried really hard to get the thing done by Christmas but I was 10 or so ornaments short and some of my original ornaments didn't make the final cut. I finished the last three ornaments last night (New Year's Eve) so I can at least say I finished before 2013! Haha, not so. As I was writing this post last night I thought of a couple other things I needed to do to the calendar to make it complete. I can NOW say that it is complete and done by Jan. 2 2013! I added a tag to the back that also serves as a pocket for the 25th ornament, and then had to make one more ornament. I only had room for 3 rows, which meant only 24 pockets on the front. (That math will get ya every time!) Whew! I'm glad I'm done and I'll be so happy next December when I can just take it out and hang it.