Christmas-knitting is actually coming along well.  (Shocking, I know.)  I was able to cross two items off my list:

(One Row Handspun Scarf and the Amanda Hat)

The scarf is made out of some handspun corriedale from Sakina Needles and the hat is Malabrigo Worsted.  On the garter rows, I held together a single-ply of the handspun with the Malabrigo to incorporate the colors of the scarf into the hat a bit more.  I’m debating on using what’s left of the single-ply to add some fringe to the scarf.  Hmmm.  Haven’t decided yet.  Anyway, both are for my grandmother.  Hopefully she’ll like them.

I also started a scarf.  I’m knitting it up using some positively yummy Cascade Cash Vero DK that recently came in stock at my LYS.  The pattern is the Palindrome scarf, which is a reversible cable.  I added one extra repeat (4 cables instead of 3) to account for the yarn being DK weight rather than the heavy-worsted that the pattern was originally designed for.  I’m pleased with the results thus far and I’m shocked at how far I’ve gotten in a very short time.  I worked on it at a knitting get-together last night at Barnes and Noble and I made it well over halfway through the first ball of yarn.  I’m hoping that four balls total will be enough to amount to a reasonable length.

Oh!  Speaking of Barnes and Noble, whie we were there last night, one of the gals in my knitting-group got one of the employees to go in the back and pull a copy of the new Mason-Dixon book.  Oh my gosh is it ever fab-u-lous!  It’s now on my Christmas wishlist (*hint, hint*).

… AND, speaking of books — the new Yarn Harlot book, Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again, should be available any time now.  There was a post about it on the Yarn Harlot blog a couple days ago.  I’ve had mine on pre-order for what seems like months.  I’m so geeked about this book.  I enjoy Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s writing so very much.  I can’t wait to get my copy.  Yay for Amazon.com overnight shipping.

Anyway, aside from Christmas-knitting and stalking bookstores, I’ve been making soap.

Er — well, no.  Not making soap.  I’m more melting, mixing, and pouring soaps.  I haven’t attempted the actual making yet, though I hope to do so eventually (once I learn enough about it to get over my fear of lye-burns).

Bramble Berry has become my new favorite website to stalk and I’ve gotten several new books to read all about soaps and essential oils (Storey Publishing owns my soul at this point).

It’s all really, really fascinating honestly.  I might’ve been a lot more interested in Accelerated Chemistry I and II during high school had it been put in the context of things like this!  I think it appeals to me because it satisfies my geeky-technical side as well as my creative side all at the same time.  There’s a lot of precision measurement and science involved, but a lot of asthetics as well.  I have soooo many ideas for different soaps I want to make.  (Guess what everyone’s getting in their Christmas-stockings this year…?)  Honestly though, who can’t use a few bars of pleasent-smelling soap?  Yup.

Needless to say, I’m keeping busy.  As always.

I switched gears once again for a little while and picked up my embroidery for a bit.

My cousin (2nd cousin actually, I think?) Jenny is expecting her second son next month, so I decided to embroider some Onesies for her. For the one in the picture, I used the Sublime Stitching Kurt Halsey patterns and lettering from the Sublime Stitching book.

Tomorrow I’m going to embroider a second one using I Luv Veggies (one of my favorite pattern sets!). I’m also going to make 2 t-shirts for the “big brother” — I think I’m going to use Monkey Love and some of the car/truck designs from the book for those.

I like embroidery. I’m not great at it, and I like doing just very simple designs. That’s part of why I love Sublime Stitching so much: you can do simple outlines and they still are cute and look great, or you can really run with the designs and make them as complex and intricate as you want, and they look great that way too.

Anyway.

I’m hoping to get all 4 Onesies/t-shirts done tomorrow so I can mail them Saturday morning.

I finally got a chance this afternoon to do a fun, crafty little project that I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time…

I made tags/cards to go with the socks I’ve been knitting for gifts. I wanted to be able to include a little message and the washing/care instructions with each pair. (I’d hate for the gift-recipients to end up with shrunk and/or felted socks after the first time they wear/wash them!) But I wanted to make the tags and fun too!

I’m not much of an artist, so I decided that stamps would be the way to go as far as a design. eBay has a huge selection of stamps. I found adorable cartoon sheep and socks hanging on a clothing line. I also picked up a stamp from Michael’s that says “Homemade By” and leaves space to sign your name. I got some small card stock, a black ink pad, and some nice colored pencils at Michael’s.

Here’s what I came up with:

(Click to see the super-large version of the photo.)

I was so pleased with how they turned out. The sheep stamp is just too darn cute! I can’t wait to give away all my knitted gifts with cards like these.

Heck, this could be the start of a new obsession hobby! I’d love to do our Christmas cards like this… hmmm…Oh! You want to know how to make your cat hate you…?

Glue SoftPaws to his or her claws! (Especially PINK ones. Heh.) Gidget really isn’t bad about sharpening her claws on things, but she does climb the back of the couch, which makes Nick cringe, so he requested we try these out. Gidget has been ignoring me all night because I had to be the “bad guy” who put them on her. Little does she know, it’s actually all daddy’s doing!

Oh. my. gosh. I’m dragging this morning. I overslept. I’m exhausted. I just can’t seem to catch up! I’m so glad that over the next two weeks, I don’t have one single day that I have an appointment or “to-do” prior to noon. Thank goodness!

I didn’t get much crafting done last night. I started something for my Craftster swap-partner in the “Fill a Coffee Mug” swap, but I decided that I wasn’t happy with the colors I initially picked, so I’m going to try again with a different color palate.

I knit maybe 3 or 4 rounds on my socks last night too, but that was it. I think I should have just gone to bed early instead.

*yawn!*

I’ve also been working on uploading pictures of my stash to Flickr, and then I’m adding them to Ravelry. Thanks to Carolyn, who commented on my previous post with this solution, I’ve decided to downsize my stash a bit. I’m going to start setting aside a pile of yarns to mail to the school tonight hopefully and maybe I’ll get a chance to mail them tomorrow.

I’m thinking I may have to make a stop at The Neighborhood Knit Shop tonight. I’d seen this sock yarn on KnitPicks, specifically in the “Clay” colorway and I thought it was the most perfect fall color ever. I thought I’d go up to the store and see if I could find something autumn-like there. Otherwise I may have to order from KnitPicks when we get back from our honeymoon.

Finally on Sunday, I finished my craft studio.

Well… okay, technically it still needs curtains and some other “finishing touches”, but for the most part, it’s done. It’s definitely a space I can work in, at long last.

It’s pretty impressive: I managed to fit all of my sewing, scrapbooking, embroidery, knitting, and other craft supplies into one room, along with my computer stuff, my books, my ferrets, my hamster, and two small aquariums… and there’s still space to work!

I sat in there last night chatting on AIM with Erica and finishing up my Harry Potter Gryiffindor scarf. I could seriously just stay in that room forever. I love it so much — it’s so “me” and everything is in perfect order and right where I want it. It really makes me giddy.

I actually finished the HP scarf last night, all except the fringe. I hand-washed it and laid it out on my cutting table to dry today while I’m at work. Hopefully I can finish it up (and take photos) tonight.