Bulldawgs Birthday

These photos are of a selection of items I made for a gift basket for my mom's birthday this year. She is on the faculty at the University of Georgia so I thought these colors and images were apropos.


These are jumbo paper clips that I actually found at my grocery store. If you live in Texas then you know the wonder that is H.E.B. It's not a fancy gourmet store or anything like that, just consistent, clean and great quality. Anyway, back to crafts, the images are on paperboard that I punched with my largest circle punch then layered with paper and stamped images.


The notepads were pretty much done the same way. I ran the card stock base down the back of the pad just to make it pretty.



This last one is actually a post-it notepad. The card stock covers it completely and then there is a velcro closure. Makes a great little purse item.

There were some pens too, but they wouldn't hold still on the scanner :) Most of these items were inspired by images from SplitcoastStampers.com.

My mom loved it, of course.

The Shawl of Death...

or at least really annoyingness! I thought I would never finish this shawl!!! It was "commissioned" by my mom for her best friend and I was glad to do it, but it seemed like my life insisted on getting in the way of this thing getting done. It didn't help either, that I had to go back to the yarn store once to change the color (my first choice I didn't like when I got it home) and twice more after that to buy more yarn! That's what I get for not doing calculations.

I guess some people, mean people, might say I waited too long to start the darn thing. They could be considered "right", if you are inclined to that type of thinking. I would like to point out, however, that I had to start this sucker three times! Some noble knitters will just snicker and say "that's what swatching is for". I get that, I really do, but most of the time I feel like I have no spare time for anything extra. I have learned my lesson, probably.

The first two patterns I tried did not work with this yarn, at all. Let me back-up a step and tell you what this is you are looking at. The yarn is Skacel Adagio in a rust color. The pattern I finally settled on is another from the Lion site, the Very Easy Ripple Shawl. I just realized that I shouldn't have told anyone what the pattern was called :) the shawl looks way better than a "very easy".

The first two patterns I tried are from this cool site, Free Vintage Knitting. I tried the Harmony and the Sonata patterns. Both looked really cool and were near impossible with the type of yarn I was using. The Harmony was especially tricky because of the triple yarn-overs, they caused a lot of twisting and made moving stitches along nearly impossible, even on my Addi Turbos. (I am including links to tons of stuff for the newer knitters who may not have heard of some of these products. :)

I better thank my husband, in print, for putting up with a few days of maniacal knitting when I was trying to finish. That's him holding up my creation for the camera.

So, the end result is the shawl you see here. I am hoping to be able to post a picture of the recipient with her gift soon. I am actually pretty proud of this project, especially since I just started knitting in January of this year.

PS. A member of my local Stitch N Bitch has pointed out to me recently that I have stuck with knitting for more than six months, so I guess I can officially count it among my hobbies. Hooray!