
It's 2006 and the holidays are officially over! As much fun as they were, it's nice to be back to my regular routine. I was on vacation from Christmas until New Year's Day. It was so great
to relax, enjoy the holidays, and to just do fun things around the
house with my husband. We read, played games, worked on crafts. It
was a great way to see out the old year and bring in the new year. I
am so much more relaxed that I was 10 days ago.
I had brought home a ton of brown paper from work to use as wrapping paper. I have a hard time buying the real stuff (such a waste!) and my family is use to getting presents wrapped in Willamette Weeks, so the brown paper was a step up for me. My cat loved playing with the paper. He built himself a little fort. Below are pictures of the things I made for Christmas this year. It's nice to actually be able to blog about them now that they are with their new owners.

I made the two scarves above for my cousin and his boyfriend. My cousin got the blue scarf on the right and his boyfriend got the grey scarf. Each is almost 6 feet long. I did a basic k2 p2 for the pattern on size 13 needles. The yarn is thick and very soft. They will definitely keep you warm. They got sent all the way to Korea, where my cousin is living.
My niece and Mom both got i-pod socks. I think I'm done making i-pod socks for awhile. It seems like that's all I ever knit. Time to branch our more. My niece's is the top sock and my mom's is the bottom sock.
I used this pattern for the i-pod sock. I used size 5 needles and reduced the number of stitches to 36. It seemed to work well, although I probably should have reduced the number of stitches to 32. I used a chenille yarn, so it's super soft.

I made the amethyst necklace for my mother-in-law and the rose quartz for my soon to be mother-in-law. Both are made with sterling silver wire.
This necklace for my niece was a trial of love. I ended up making the thing three times. I didn't have a set pattern, but got the pattern for the hemp knots from Beadage. This picture is the first version. I wore it and it just didn't hang right. Having the cord across the back of the glass pendant made the necklace hang down, so you didn't get a good view of the pendant.

This is the third version finished. I put the little red beads closer together. I also started the necklace at the middle and worked my way out. This way I avoided the hemp at the back of the pendant. It hung very nicely once that middle part was removed.
This is the finished piece from the front. I made the glass pendant as well. I really like how the whole thing turned out. I'm glad I re-did the necklace to get it exactly the way I wanted it.

I made these rooster earrings for my Secret Santa pal at work. She is really into roosters and even has a rooster tattoo. These were just too good to pass up.
For my mom, sister, and mother-in-law, I made these earrings. All got different colors. They turned out really well. I also made myself a pair.
Short Fuses is the name of the business my kiln partner and I are starting. Our goal for 2006 is to get a web-site up and start selling stuff. This is a rough version of our logo. Please keep checking back. Once the site is up, I will be linking to it from my blog. Side note: The paper is left over from my wedding invitations I made five years ago. Sometimes being a pack rat comes in handy.