Here are some of the things I’ve been making these last few weeks:

Truffles we made for Amy’s party

Chocolate covered pretzels and the rest of the goodies from Amy’s party

Homemade jalapeño poppers for Amy’s party

Antipasto Skewers for Amy’s party

weenie shaped marshmallows

chocolate, almond, coconut cookies

pecan brittle and candy cane cookies

I’ve been in crazy crafting mode in my spare time. I’ve been helping my friend Amy make treats for her Christmas party, plus making gifts and treats to give. Here are a few that I’ve been working on:

PJ pants for the twinzies. They turn two next week, can’t believe it…

The pattern is KWIK SEW and the fabric is new at Tangle by David Walker. Can I just say that I LOVE kiwk sew patterns? They are so easy!

Peanut Butter Pretzels

Um, love these! They might be my favorite thing we’ve made so far! If you melt half a bar of gulf wax into the chocolate it stays nice and glossy.

Peanut Butter Balls

I’ve noticed that at Christmas time there are a lot of balls involved. I can’t tell you how many balls I’ve made… meatballs, truffles, peanut butter balls… just saying…

Candy Cane Cookies

LOVE THESE. My mom has made these every year since I can remember. So good.

There has been a lot more so more to come…

I’m pretty sure my most favorite thing to knit is blankets. I don’t know what it is about blankets, but I am such a sucker for them!

I’ve been working on this blanket for quite awhile. When I discovered that Berroco Plush had been discontinued, I snatched up what we had left in the store to make a big throw for my living room. We have been SO sad that this yarn is discontinued, it is perfect for making baby blankets! I used size 10 needles and knit each stripe from one ball. And used 20 balls total (I can’t believe how much this blanket cost!) It is definitely the favorite blanket around here and so soft and snuggly.

I made this sweater for baby Gunnison. I just love my stand-by Knitting Pure and Simple #214 Baby Pullover Pattern. It is perfect for babies and so easy. The yarn is Spud and Chloe Sweater which is my favorite kid yarn at the moment. I modified the pattern a little bit by using a size 8 needle rather than the recommended size 9. I thought the yarn did better on a size 8. So I tweaked the sizing so it would end up being the 6 month size.

I made this blanket for my cousin Leann who is pregnant with her third child. I just knew the baby was going to be a girl and for the first time in YEARS I was actually right. I love, love, love this pattern from Purl. It was so easy and such a great way to use Blue Sky’s organic cotton. It’s so soft and squishy. We plan to offer this blanket as one of our fall workshops at Tangle.

I spent last weekend working on a quilt for a much anticipated baby. My friend Rickelle chose all the fabrics for her baby quilt – which I love. We’re leaving the binding off until the baby is born in the next week or so and we find out if it’s a boy or a girl. If it’s a girl, the binding is definitely going to be HOT pink, which I think will be darling.

The fabrics are a collection of Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry. I’m not sure what the black and white damask is, I bought it in NYC at Purl for Amy and she donated it to the quilt. The finished size is going to be approx 44×60 – It feels big but I think it’s a great size to last a kid a long time. I quilted the back with diagonal lines and I really like how it turned out. I just followed the bar on my quilting foot to determine the distance between each line.

I’m really happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to get the binding on and wash it up so it gets all puckery and wonderful!

Amy and I also have spent some time sewing little birds for the baby’s mobile. I’m so excited about this project! We got the idea and the pattern from Spool and it is turning out SO cute.

Yay little baby! I can’t wait to meet you!

Once I get something in my head, I get so ridiculous. Someone once described me as tenacious and I think that that is just about perfect. There might possibly be a picture of me next to the word in the dictionary. This weekend I decided that I wanted a new quilt and that I wanted one RIGHT NOW. So I basically locked myself in the house for two days and made a quilt. (And a pair of slippers.)

When the Joel Deeberry fabric arrived at Tangle, I about had a heart attack over the cuteness. In fact, I had to reorder the aqua birds because it sold out in the first week. But not before I saved some for myself. It sat on my sewing desk for two weeks before it turned into a quilt, so really I’m applauding my restraint. The aqua birds and the orange damask are from the aviary 2 line, the dots are Amy Butler.

I wanted to make the quilt simple with big blocks of the fabric. I think the prints show up best this way.

The back was basically an exercise in how I could use up all of the scraps. I paired it with some Amy Butler cream solid. I think I might like the back more than the top.

I quilted each square with a different pattern. My favorite, and the most annoying to do, is the “concentric” squares on the orange damask. I get really lazy when it comes to quilting, so once I started, I had to force myself finish. Shoving a quilt through my little machine is not my favorite thing to do.

Dexter was really “helpful” in making this quilt. I don’t know what it is about this dog that he is drawn to any piece of fabric laying on the ground. He walked all over the back with muddy feet. This morning I came home to find him snuggled under the quilt. He is lucky that he is cute.

I learned a few new skills while making this. First, I discovered how to baste with adhesive spray. I will never again do it another way. This saved me at least an hour. And was SO easy.

The second is how to make continuous bias binding. Were I to not mess it up, it would have saved me tons of time. It’s such a smart method.

The quilt is roughly 60×60 and will find it’s home in the living room where I’m slowly amassing a nice collection of quilts.

One of my favorite things to do is to read design blogs. My favorite is design sponge. I savor each post and save pictures to my iPad when I’m inspired, which is frequently. I like to hoard up a lot of posts and sit down and read them all at once. My brain starts spinning with ideas and then I go and decide to tear something up or paint or decorate or make. And it all just makes me so happy. Being able to create has saved me in so many ways.

And now I have 64 new posts saved up in my google reader which I’m about to enjoy immensely.

I believe in being creative. It’s not just something that I want to do, but something that I insatiably crave. I make something almost daily. I believe that every person has the ability to be creative in some way. And that our creativity is what draws us out of ourselves. When I find myself in moments of personal crisis, I run to my projects and it’s creating that saves me, usually from myself. Life always flows out of being creative. And I think we all need life to flow through us, especially in crisis.

Sometimes creating is about the finished product, but its always about the process. Wrapping the yarn around the needle, methodically creating each stitch, sewing together tiny pieces of fabric to create a rich, colorful story, chopping vegetables and stirring together sauces, each stroke of the paint brush, each letter typed – its so easy to pour all of yourslef into each movement, to let your mind go blank and feel the rhythm, to have time to think but also be distracted, so profound and healing thoughts aren’t forced, but come to you as you stitch, chop, paint, type… create.

I’m reading the book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist. She is talking about creating and she says we create because we were made to create.

“We were made to be the things that [God] is: forgivers, redeemers, second chance-givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely made to be creators.”

That definitely explains this need I have. And the peace I find in Making. And the connection to God that I feel when I finish something and sit back and look at it and think, “wow, I made that.” And I think about how after he made us, even though he knew we were gonna mess it all up, and need him to come along and redeem us, he still sat back and said, “I made that. And it’s good.”

Um, so, I love having sewing classes at my store.

Last week Eden took the kids sewing class and is now addicted. She completed her pillowcase and my machine made it out alive. (when i dropped her off for class, I tried really hard not to worry about turning my machine over to her, but I still did… a little.)

When it turned out that I needed to have the kids with me all day at Tangle Saturday (Jim always ends up having out of town shows on the weekends I work.), Eden asked if she could sew something. She whipped out these blankets for her and Honor. I cut and pinned and she did the rest, including most of the pressing.

Notice the pillowcase she made too.

These blankets are just super-simple, two layers (one flannel, one quilting cotton) sewn inside out and then turned. I was worried that they would be weird without batting, but ended up being great for this time of year. They both have drug them around everywhere.

Now she wants to sew blankets for everyone she knows. I’ve gotta teach this kid to quilt…

After over a year of working on my crochet blanket, it’s finally finished. This monster took two MILES of peaches and creme yarn! I don’t normally recommend peaches and creme for anything but dish cloths, but I felt comfortable with the shrinking and fading aspects of the yarn for this blanket.

Since July is blanket month at Tangle, I’m onto the next blanket – a loose knit throw out of brushed alpaca.

On Monday it finally occurred to me that we have a local dairy right here in GJ. I called them up and asked about how the cows were treated and fed. While they’re not certified organic – it can be expensive for a small business – their milk is organic. I was thrilled – organic and local! So the whole fam when out and picked out some milk and cream and while we were there, had a little tasty ice cream treat too.

I bought the heavy cream to mix with milk to make half and half but thought that I’d also try to make butter. Turns out making butter is easy. It only took me about ten minutes. It would have turned out well but I think my vintage kitchen aid leaked oil into the mixing bowl and the butter came out a little grey. Eww. I threw it away of course, but as soon as I figure out whats wrong with my mixer, I’ll be back in butter-making business.

Next I’m going to make a batch of kefir.