The creative side of life

It seems like ages since I’ve posted anything I’ve been working on recently, so I thought I’d show off some stuff.

My chorus decorates one of the local banks each year for the holidays.  The bank then brings in some people to vote and awards a nice cash prize to the winner.  The chorus used to do fairly well, but the last few years they haven’t been. So this year one of my friends decided that we needed to rethink how we are decorating and everyone has been busy working on the decorations.

For me, that work has included a couple of Wednesday afternoons paper mache-ing and painting, and also a weekend putting this together.

If you haven’t guessed the new decoration theme is Dr. Suess’s Whoville. The decorations go up the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Lately, most of my crafty time is finding something for my fingers to do while I’m watching TV and so my knitting adventure has continued.  I can’t show you pics of everything I’ve done this fall (some things are going to be Xmas presents) but Girl requested a knit cap that I finished a week or so ago.

She picked out a fuzzy yarn so a lot of the details are hard to see.

Right now I’m teaching myself to cable and it’s been interesting.  I’m finally at the point where my errors are minor enough to leave in and so I’m not pulling out more stitches than I’m doing, but after about 5 times through the pattern (of 24 rows) I still don’t have one cycle that doesn’t have at least something off.

When I finish playing with it, I’ll have a scarf for myself.  And then I’ll start working on a afghan for Girl.

And I’ll leave with some more leather projects that I made at the end of the summer:

This bookmark was for the parent of one of Boy’s college friends.  She and I have connected a few times in FB and so I brought it with me when we met IRL while dropping our kids off at college.

And lastly:

I had a request for a special keychain and was real happy with how this came out.

And that’s about it that I can show.  Sooner or later I’ll get the leatherwork page up to date, but that is low on my priority list.

hmm, some reason I knew that would attract attention.

What I’m referring to is that in sewing this up I stabbed the awl through my middle finger.

No, it wasn’t on purpose.

Yes, it  looks like it’s going to be alright.

No, I didn’t need stitches (though I’m resisting posting pictures of the injured digit.)

Yes, I should have been more careful.

No, I can’t say that this is the first time it’s ever happened…..

Anyway, if you recall, when I made my first mug last year, I gave it to Boy and so Girl has been after me to make her one.  It took us a while to agree on a picture, but she finally decided a tiger.

And aside from the finger issue, it went together fairly smoothly.  I used slightly heavier leather on this mug and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not at this point.

There was one catch with the picture she choose, it’s hard to see now that it’s sewn up.

I have two posts on here that get hit constantly by people searching.  The dragon mug I did for Boy and this one about Eragon. Since people seem to be interested in the mug, I thought I’d post a couple “how it went goes together” pics.

Since I had to start from scratch figuring this out, I’d be happy to pass on my pattern to anyone interested in making their own.

Anyway, since this post is referring to blood….

I thought I’d mention Girl’s recent blood sacrifice (though actually it barely bled.)   – and yes, the hair has changed yet again.  It now very short, totally bleached out with a splash of bright blue over her eyes.  Very cute.

And I can’t close without adding this little pic.  On our way to get Girl’s piercing, we passed this sign that actually got a chuckle out of both of us.