Home(made) for the Holidays

I decided to be extra crafty this year, inspired by JJ's craftiness last year, and I made almost all of my gifts.  Here are the hand-made, and at times silly, gifts.

Last year my mom got this book for Christmas...kinda hilarious.  I'm sure she didn't really expect me to use it but I couldn't resist.  One year later...a puppet version of my famous cat, Nikolas James Pumpkinhead, was born.

However, I felt bad giving her only a cat since she is allergic.  I found a recipe for homemade Tootsie Rolls (her favorite candy) and whipped up a batch.

It looked like Mud Pie at first...

Then they got rolled and wrapped and placed in a Mason Jar!

My sister, and fellow blogger, is about as crafty as they come.  Some months before Christmas I was telling a friend about some ridiculous story from our childhood and he said something along the lines of, "You should make her a badge for that."  Thus the idea for creating her own personalized Girl Scout sash and badges was born.  Sorry, I can't tell you all the stories as they aren't all totally appropriate for the interwebs, but here they are!

Badges: U.S.S., Cuddle Buddy Badge, Survival with a Bear Badge,
I Got Peed on Badge...

Badges: UFO Badge, Secret Agent Badge, Lollipop Badge,
You-Would-Have-Made-Better-Badges Badge
P.S.  For those of you who don't know...my sister looks
IDENTICAL to my mom in this picture.

My older brother is a huge fan of Star Trek.  For him, I whipped up a couple of Tribbles.  Sadly, I forgot to snap some pictures.  They were fuzzy.  And I made them blue.

Kirk and the Tribbles

His son, my nephew Nate, is in 3rd grade and still thinks I am cool.  He got a homemade pencil bookmark and a couple of pencils.

Dad (founder of Jim Howe Concerts) received mixed CDs with songs from some of my favorite artists of 2012, namely Aoife O' Donovan, a good friend's daughter.  She is on the up and up so look for her to soar in 2013!

My little brother Zach was supposed to get a toy version of his dog Buddy, as I blogged about earlier this summer.  Sadly, the pattern we chose disappeared.  Instead I decided to make a gift for him AND Buddy. Zach got a "Buddy" hat and Buddy got a "Zach" hat.  It worked out perfectly since Zach took off on Christmas morning for Maui and we had been dog sitting Buddy.  The poor dog missed his BFF so much...I think the hat helped just a smidge.

Buddy in a "Zach" hat

The "Buddy" hat, complete with Buddy's spot

knitting maps, for friends

outer banks

one of the blogs i follow, Maps For Friends, is written by a good friend who, obviously, loves all things map related.  so it was no surprise when he requested some knitting that was also map related. after much contemplation, i settled on making a pot holder. in my head i was thinking this would be another "quick knit" to break up the monotony of the scarf i've been working on. i need to stop thinking i can "quick knit" anything.
my first issue was creating a pattern. a quick google search brought up tons of images of world maps, but as you might know, world maps are not perfect squares. so i found a picture that i thought would work, threw it into Knit Pro 2.0 and voila.

row of condemned, beachfront houses

then i had another problem. if i was just going to throw this together as a favor, i wasn't really going to take the time to drive all the way to the knitting store for new yarn, so i had planned on just using some of my stash. but when making a pot holder, can one use acrylic yarn or will it melt?? i googled some more, and couldn't find a consensus, so i opted to not try it. luckily i had some cotton yarn left over from my pathetic attempt at making a shirt.
so onwards and upwards. i decided how many stitches i wanted to cast on (45) and went over to ravelry to look for some hints. boy was i surprised. apparently there is this thing called double knitting that is used to make potholders which makes the project thicker and knits the design on both sides. well. after watching plenty of YouTube videos, i decided that was not for me. the plan was to knit one square with the pattern, and then knit a plain square and sew the two together.

5 balls of yarn at work!

the adventure began and it was taking forever. so when i was asked to head to the outer banks for a  weekend, i couldn't resist. finishing a travel related project on a weekend trip sounded perfect! well, that didn't happen. the weather was beautiful and i spent most of my time either walking on the beach or hanging out with the locals in a bar.
so it was back to dc to finish. once i actually settled in to work on it, the work didn't actually take that long. and once the front was done, the back only took a couple of hours, although i assume it takes much less time for a more polished knitter.  so here is the final product....

all done!

the colors seem a bit off, probably because it was taken at 1am when i finally finished it. to sew it together, i put the right sides together and started in one corner. once three sides were sewn, i flipped it right side out and stitched the two sides together in the middle, about every inch or so. my only concern when i decided to make 2 separate pieces was that they would be too floppy once put together. hopefully my stitches will stay together and keep the pot holder sturdier.

i tried to take a better picture with natural light to give a better sense of the true colors, but it was too bright for my camera w the shades open. it kind of shows a difference, although not as much as i would have hoped.
so all in all, pot holder success. if i make anymore of these, i will probably use a bigger needle and bulkier yarn, just to make the process go a bit faster. i imagine most knitters could whip this baby out in less than an hour. oh well. at least my work isn't pulling as much when i use two colors!!!

cuddle buddies

now time for an update. you may remember the post by meg about the Nikolas pillow i made and how he was scared to go near it. well, the tides have turned. Nikolas and pillow Nikolas have now bonded. and my work here is complete.

homemade christmas

so i realized something in 2011. i don't like cooking. and i definitely don't like blogging about cooking. oy vey was that a terrible blog topic. but kudos to meg for sticking with it and being the lone blogger!!! that howe girl did stuff!!

what i did realize in 2011 was that i love knitting. and not in a normal human-hobby kind of way. this sh*t is real. at first i was eh about it, but then i really started liking it. but then it got all "i was just a stupid bet" with me and tried to make me cable and read charts and i tried to walk away. i thought i knew what i wanted. but in the end, i was able to overcome all our differences and make it work. call up kate hudson, cause we have a fan-fucking-tastic romcom on our hands.

i love knitting so much that i made a lot of my christmas presents this year, which i was very excited about. i pulled a grandma cully and made marmie and meg the same thing, and even made them open their presents at the same time!! they both got a cowl based on something completely overpriced from the gap, and a pair of fingerless mitts. btw, my mom is a fox. and can you tell meg moved to la?? i think it was around 80 when she took the pic for me.

my favorite present, however, was what i made for my dad. after much searching, i realized i wouldn't find a pattern for a sabres hat, so i kind of made up my own based on a couple of others. in the end, i'm super excited with the end product! the only problem was that its a tad big for my daddio's head. oh well. he rocks it like were a winning team! LETS GO BUFFALO!!


since i was having such a great time knitting, i didn't stop with just the presents. i made an owl hat with a pom pom!!

and mustaches (elephant not included)!!!
so while the 2011 resolution may have been a bust, im hoping 2012 is much better. i made a ton of resolutions, including knitting more and possibly starting my own site to sell some stuff (who really needs 6 pair of owl mitts?!?). i've also resolved to learn a foreign language (spanish), learn basic web coding, pretend to go to the gym, and yes, cook. so far so good on each resolution, but its still january!!


happy knitting!!