A stitch in time, A day at a time: November 2010

Enlisting my blog friends and readers

I need to get hold of two of these, one if two were not available, and its driving me nuts cause I can't find them online! Has anyone seen them? My brother wants to give them as Christmas presents

Please please, if you find them let me know!

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Craft update!

Hello peeps! How are you?Tomorrow is the first Advent Sunday, and that means a bit less than a month is left until Christmas. I'm only making a few presents this year, and here's a quick craft update:

Far left: knitted scarf for Dad. No frills, no fringe, four-ish feet long. Its meant to be worn under his jacket. Made in a gorgeous natural colored Blue Sky Alpacas bulky yarn, that I must say I loved working with! 50% wool, 50% alpaca. Progress: 99% done. Weaving in ends to do.

Center, down: crocheted scarf for mom. Yesterday she admired a scarf I had made for my SIL so I decided to add two scarves (if I manage to finish them in time!), one in melons and one in caramels (center, up) this is a pattern that I enjoy very much. 100% cotton, sport weight. Progress: about 5% of the first scarf.

Right: commissioned knitted scarf. Told you about it before ;D made in Vanna's Baby. Progress: 40%. I really like how this one looks!

How are your projects going?

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Fourth time's the charm

That's how many times I've started this scarf and frogged it. Four different patterns, two different crafts but now I'm really liking it now!

Its commissioned, and the only parameters I was given was that

a) it had to be long (the recipient is TALL)
b) it had to be white

Since I know the really nice lady who will receive the scarf, I didn't want to make a plain one, so I tried two different crochet patterns (none convinced me) and a previous knit pattern (too blah) before settling for this: I think it's texture is nice, it's not too fussy or frilly (think of a Marilla-like lady and you'll see why it must be a sensible one). What do you think? Do you have a go-to pattern for when you want to make an interesting scarf that's not too fussy?

What presents are you crafting this Christmas?

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Making bows...

Turns out I'm not too shabby with a needle and thread! Found out today that the girls needed ribbons in their hair for tomorrows celebrations - early for Nov. 20th, our Revolution anniversary. The girls will dance and dress like "rieleras" and "adelitas" . Not only ribbons, but their teachers wanted bows. Big ones. Christmas-present-big.

A "rielera" could be translated as "railroad woman". They followed their men and traveled in their train during the revolution. It wasn't unusual for them to follow them into battle carrying their ammunition, sometimes with a baby tightly wrapped in their rebozo (shawl). An "adelita", which comes from the name Adela, was similar, but the reference usually is for those who followed the officers - or were their sweethearts, almost always single women who traveled with the army to be safe, and that's how they ended up socializing with the officers, apart from the rest of the army.

Well, one day, when I'm feeling brave, I'll sing the songs related to these women and record them... And maybe one day, I'll post them here.

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Some progress made

I love to knit and crochet, but embroidery is much nearer meditation than any other craft for me! I remember I used to embroider to wind down after exam week while in college!

Now I'm relaxed (crazy weekend and week so far) and going to bed. But first, how many of you embroider? How many of you do smock?

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Not entirely idle

I'm having fun and trying to relax in the rare idle moments I have. It's been a while since I did some cross stitch, but I love it just as much as I did. I'm aiming to finish this some time next decade, as it's a tablecloth and I have but five minutes here and there to work on it. But some day, God willing, it will get done and grace our table. :D

What's your favorite embroidery technique?

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