Holly Ornament

This is an example of the holly ornaments I made as incidental Christmas gifts (I really should have made more and given them to more people, but oh, well.) The leaves are felted wool from a thrifted men's wool suit (Ralph Lauren!) and the berries were wet felted from yarn. Glued together with a hot glue gun! I also printed up the symbolism of holly relating to Christmas and the lyrics for The Holly and the Ivy.

Felted Rose Purse

Another Christmas '07 recap! This was for a handmade gift exchange for my mom's group. It's an original design. I knitted two identical sides on my Bond Ultimate Sweater Machine (USM) which is really a knitting machine for anything, not just sweaters. I even got the stripes to match on both sides. I also knitted a handle on the USM then seamed and felted (or fulled) it.
After blocking, I needle felted a rose by coiling some of the same yarn I used for the purse on top of some leaves I cut out of wool felt. The closure is a pearly vintage button and I just cut a slit for the buttonhole since the wool really felted well. I left it unlined due to time constraints, but in future versions I will line it, probably knit a separate panel for the bottom, and reinforce the bottom for added rigidity.

Dreamy Entrelac

This is an entrelac scarf I'm working on in a really dreamy self-striping bulky yarn - Reynolds Smile. It's a little thick and too wide, so I'm going to frog it (it's already off the needles) and decrease it by 1/3 by only having it two squares wide on the diagonal instead of three, go up a needle size (to 11), and maybe also decrease the size of the squares to 8 or 9 (currently they are 10x10 stitches).

Felted Guitar Strap

This is a felted guitar strap I made from a Lion Brand Yarn pattern for our brother for Christmas (yes, it's an'07 project).
I was mostly happy with how it turned out, but I felted it a lot for a nice thick strap and would have liked it to be longer and wider. Also, I felted it with a white towel and it took forever to pick all the little white pills out!

homemade christmas

for christmas this last year, my husband's family did a homemade christmas theme. for his sisters, i made wool purses with needle felted details and cotton lining.