Gifts gifts gifts gifts gifts.....

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

I lost my will to blog for a few days... I think I was giving off some general "I'm losing and I need a break" vibes last weekend, because I mentioned to dh on Sunday afternoon that I was going out for a little while, and he asked me if I'd be coming back this month. We've since had one of those "family meetings" with our kids, and arrived at some plans that seem to be making everybody happy again, so we won't have to dip into our therapy funds just yet.

I've been knitting knitting knitting, mostly gifts. In may and June, there are birthdays for three nieces, another niece's graduation, Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day, and dh's birthday. Many of these gifts will include some sort of handmade element, and I've got the stash and some time to work ahead a little bit.

For Mothers' Day, I'm making a second felted oven mitt, and will pair it with some hand soap from Bath&Body Works, and probably a plant for my mil. My mom will get the same thing, except for a book instead of the plant. Here's the second mitt, still needing the thumb, next to the first already felted mitt:I'm thinking a little ribbon, and these will work out for some nice mother-type gifts. Maybe I'll throw in a dish rag or two...

All of my nieces who have birthdays yet this year (four of them) will be getting a "Tiny Tote" (pattern by Amy Anderson) containing a gift card. I have three of them knit so far using Patons Classic Merino, and will start the fourth one today. Also, I have about 90 more inches of I-cord to knit for these: These items will all be felted, and I'll show you "before" and "after" shots when I get them. I feel like I have knitting ADD in a big way right now, having started several projects this past week, and not one of them being finished--though I wanted to get all of the stuff for felting ready to go so that I could do the felting in only one washer load.

I also made bags for my kids for their piano lesson books, to enable them to carry their piano stuff with less chance of dropping something:My kids really like these, and they are the perfect size for their music. I followed the directions in Mary Mulari's "Accessories with Style," which has revolutionized the way I use zippers. I also added applique initials by printing out really big letters in MicroSoft Word, and using them as patterns. Appliques have been made really easy by the use of "Wonder Under," which is paper-backed fusible web found at the fabric store.

My mom will be visiting today, and we're looking forward to checking out the local knitting/quilting scene on Saturday, though not sure exactly where we'll go just yet.

On Sunday, my sister will be visiting, and she and I are going to run a 5K race together. We've been training independently (she mostly bikes and runs a little, I mostly run and bike a little), and this is the first **event** we've ever done together. I hope the weather is cooperates! It looks like rain here today and tomorrow...

Well, time to clean up the kitchen and the bathrooms so the house has some semblance of order when my mom arrives this morning...

Have a great weekend!
Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)