Recycling Yarn

Last night I spent some time unraveling some crochet and knit items for the yarn.  I came upon this idea one day a couple of years ago.  A lady from church went through her closet and ended up giving me a bunch of sweaters she no longer wore.  They were all very pretty and good quality but so out of style that I knew I would never wear them.  (There was one sweater that was a classic and it now hangs in my closet.)  We have a charity store in town that I could have donated them to but they had so many ladies' sweaters that they didn't need any more.  What to do with all these sweaters?  Recycle!  I've since seen this idea all over the internet but when I was given the sweaters, I didn't have the internet.  Must have been some frugal vibe in me. :-)   Anyway, its a great way to get the expensive yarns for little money.  Other resources, besides hand me downs, are yard sales and thrift stores.  Here is a blog post that tells you the best way and types of sweaters/yarn to look for.

Done!

Kirk's slippers

Now everyone has a pair :-)

More Slippers and Tawashi Flowers

Here are the slippers I made for myself.

I want to put a white fur cuff on them but it will have to wait until I'm done making a pair for Kirk.

I also crocheted some of these make-up remover pads for a gift to a friend.  I need to make some for myself as well.

Slippers and our Gingerbread house

Here's the modified version of the slipper pattern for Kyle

I'm planning on combining some red and white yarn to make some for myself, even contemplating some white fluffy yarn for a fur cuff.

We finally got around to finishing our from scratch gingerbread house this past week, just in time for Epiphany (Matthew 2:9-11).  I thought it was fitting anyway ;-)

Projects and the New Year

I finished the wristers a couple weeks before Christmas and they are so warm.  I still have sock yarn left over and am thinking about making "hoods" for my fingers, we'll see.

 

Right now, I'm working on making slippers for the kids.  Noelle wanted hers in pink camo and I'm a little over halfway done.

After making just one I already have ideas to modify the pattern so it will work up quicker, not to mention make them warmer.  Oh, here's the pattern I'm using.

I'm not big on resolutions for the New Year and found this quote and it is exactly how I feel about it.

I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

~Anaïs Nin

Whether your into resolutions or not, I wish you a Very Blessed 2010!

Live Nativity

Our church is putting on its second live nativity (December 4 & 5) and I'm the costume coordinator again.  A group of us work on the costumes and those days have been teasingly dubbed the Grace Fellowship sweat shop ;-)

(You can see a hint of the costumes to the left but that's only about 1/4 of them)

There are 80 volunteers involved this year and they aren't just from our church.  Wow!

Its fun and exhausting but so worth every minute of it.  Especially when you hear how much it blesses people and reminds them why they celebrate Christmas to begin with.

To all the volunteers..........THANK YOU!!!

What characters are my family this year?  Noelle is Mary, Kyle is a shepherd, Kirk is a wise man, and I'm a villager (so I can help where needed and take pictures :-)  Hopefully, I'll get us together (in costume) for our family Christmas photo.  Some of the families did this last year and the pictures were great!

I am taking off today through Saturday to focus on Thanksgiving and enjoying my family (and hopefully finish my wrist warmers, lol).  I just wanted to share while I had a few minutes.

Crafting Links

I've recently made two handcrafted birthday greeting cards using my computer, printer, and scrapbooking supplies.  They were made pretty last minute so there's no picture to share.  I used a template I printed off the internet for the envelopes but forgot to save it to my hard drive.  I went in search of said template (I found it at Mirkwood Designs ) but kept looking for ideas.  In the process I stumbled upon the website Craftbits.com  I've already got some great ideas for Christmas from there.