Bits of Wool & Wine

By now everyone knows I love to work with wool. This year for Christmas I made lots of woolen creations to share with friends and family. You could even go so far as to say with was the year of wine and wool for me.

This little owl drink cozy is made from three recycled wool coats. I sent this to my friend Val as a Christmas surprise.

If I could make wool drink cozies why not wine cozies? So I made this tree trunk wine cozy complete with a little white owl. It's made from a recycled wool sweater and pieces of two wool coats. I hand painted these wine glasses to go with the wine cozy. These are my first ever painted wine glasses. I'm way better with a marker than a paint brush so I need to look into getting enamel markers for glass instead of using a paintbrush.

I made this set of glasses including little red birds and a tree trunk wine cozy for another co-worker. I should have added a little red bird to the wine cozy but ran out of time.

This wine cozy was created for our friend and daycare provider. She like prim decor so I though this was a good way to package up a bottle of wine. This one is literally a sweater sleeve with the cuff cut off and a bottom added. I was done hand stitching this one in 30 minutes.

These were a gift for my partner in our Secret Santa swap. This wool and angora sweater sleeve need something so I added some beaded ribbon that I received as a tuck-in during a swap. I think it added the right amount of embellishment.

Even with these wool creations, I've hardly made a dent in my wool supplies, so I need to make some more woolen creations before spring arrives. I'm thinking I need to make some new wool mittens and try making some wool slippers, since my feet are always cold.

I didn't just work with wool this Christmas. I also made a couple of bags as gifts for co-workers. I filled the bag with crafting and zentangle supplies. This one is made from the Burda Charlie bag pattern. You can print the pattern for free here.

This one is made from a printed duck cloth, using my own throw it together method. I started this last year but messed it up and ran out of time to complete it before Christmas. I had all year to fix it but didn't. Never worry, a year later I pulled it out of my UFO pile and fixed it. I gave it to my co-worker with a tag that said Merry Christmas this year and last year! She laughed and appreciated the joke. I'm lucky to have such great friends.

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

I won this adorable apron on The Distracted Domestic. The uber talented Regena made this apron just for me. I won it for participating in her Tie One On Apron giveaway. I made aprons for two of my co-workers for the official Tie One On Day. I greatly enjoyed doing this and I won this fabulous apron in the process! See it was a win - win situation! THANK YOU Regena, I LOVE it!

Regena sent me an e-mail entitled Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner to let me know I won. Of course I was super excited to win and every time I hear Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner it makes me think of a recipe I got a few years ago during a Wilson Reading workshop. Another workshop participant gave it to me. In honor of this occasion I thought I'd share the recipe.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Ingredients:

! small roasted chicken or 3 cooked chicken breasts (shredded)

1 box stuffing mix

2 jars of chicken gravy

1 pie crust(pre-made or homemade)

Frozen veggie mix

Fresh veggies(mushrooms, celery, onion- or whatever you like)

1/4/to 1/2 cup merlot or red wine

3 tablespoons of butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Prepare stuffing and set aside.

Saute the fresh veggies in butter. Add fresh rosemary or thyme if desired.

Stir together all ingredients in a casserole dish (I use a 2.5 quart dish)

Top with a pie crust. Cover with with foil and bake for 10 minutes. Remove foil and bake until golden and bubbly(approx. 35 minutes.)

Serve and enjoy!

And that's Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Announcing the . . . . . Crafty Bits Swap Spot

Give a Hoot - Owl Swap

We are swapping Owls this time. Sign ups close January 30th and the ship date is March 1st. For swap details or to sign up, visit Crafty Bits Swap Spot.

Happy Owl Swapping!

Catching Up

December was a blur with school and the holidays. Now in January we're playing catch up. I have tons of pictures of Christmas goodies to post but to start our blog catch up, I'll leave you with this picture. This is Nature Girl - toothless, well as least having one less tooth than usual. She turns eight soon but this is just the third tooth she has lost. She was very excited!

More pictures and goodies to follow in January.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours! May 2012 be a year filled with happiness and good health for all!

This was the picture Nature Girl drew for our Christmas card this year. Even naughty little Chunk made it on the card. I'm happy to report that despite his naughtiness Santa was very good to him. Chunk got lots of presents!

We're enjoying our time off together. I was busy crafting right up to until Christmas. I'll post my crafted Christmas goodies soon, so you can see what I've been up to. Happy Holidays!

Tie One On Day

I've missed making aprons! I hadn't made any aprons in quite awhile so I was suffering from apron withdrawals. Not to worry, November is time to celebrate National Tie One On Day. It's a holiday right before Thanksgiving where you give back to others by crafting an apron and some goodies just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Not only does it take care of apron withdrawals it makes someone else's day! I call that a win -win situation!

I made and delivered two aprons for National Tie One On Day. Both aprons went to co-worker/friends at school.

The first Tie One On apron is this wild psychedelic number. It is made with vintage silk screened acrylic fabric. It's wild but I really love the fabric. Of course it's reversible and has a flamingo print on the back.

The second apron is this pink polka dot apron. I made this one for one of the speech therapists last year but held onto it because it needed some adjustments. She was trying to lose weight so we decided to wait on adjusting it. She's lost 33 pounds and looks great. We had to tear apart the top of the apron to get it to fit but we finished just time time for Tie One On Day. Look how cute her apron looks on her! This one is also reversible with a brown paisley fabric on the back. It was fun to share my love of aprons with my coworkers/friends!

I also finished this apron which is my first crafted Christmas gift this year. I finished a second apron for a Christmas gift and have a third one that is partially completed. Three Jillymade Christmas gifts done. Let's hope I can get a few more made in time for Christmas!

Woosh . . . And November is Gone

The title says it all. Time is flying by and I'm running along like a crazy woman trying to catch up. I took tons of pictures in November but hardly posted anything. Christmas is just around the corner and I haven't shared anything from November, so here are a few highlights.

My wonderful husband celebrated his birthday this month. Happy birthday Honey, we love you! You are the best dad and husband ever! We have a couple of birthday traditions. The first tradition is that you get choose a homemade birthday dessert. He chose Tuxedo Brownies. Yummy! Our second tradition is that you get to go to dinner at the restaurant of your choice. The restaurant he choose had a super long wait so he chose a second restaurant instead. We brought him back to his first choice few days later, so he got to have two birthday dinners out.

Nature Girl participated in a Veteran's Day assembly at school. She learned to sign the words to "God Bless the USA" and performed it in front of the school with her class. She did a wonderful job and of course I cried! That song always gets me and I was so proud of her. She worked so hard to learn the signs and was very nervous about performing. She's an amazing little girl!

Nature Girl also got her report card this month. She did a great job! We took her out to dinner to celebrate.

Chunk had surgery this month. He was micro-chipped and neutered. After a few days of not feeling like his usually naughty self, he's back to normal and seems to have forgiven me. He also had his first stay in a kennel over Thanksgiving. He was a bit scared. He didn't like the other dogs barking and had to be hand fed in order to get him to eat. Needless to say he was happy to see us. Now he's back to his normal self, which means he's back to eating anything within his reach. This weeks chewing choices include socks, paperclips and a mini bottle of bubbles.

That leaves me. I've been trying to fit a few crafts into the chaos of everyday life. I've had owls on the brain so I've been making little owls from wool. I've also missed making aprons so I've made a couple of those too(I'll show those in another post.)

I crafted an owl ornament for my friend Barb.

I hosted a pincushion swap in October that spilled over into November. I couldn't stop myself from creating this little wool tree stump pincushion complete with owls. I sent this one along to Barb too. I have another tree stump that just needs an owl attached. Of course Chunk ate the wings off that owl so I need to make a new one now.

There you have it, a few highlights from November. And woosh . . . November is gone! Bring on the holidays!