I can finally show you what I made for Christmas presents…sort of. USPS has lost one of the packages I mailed on December 18, and I am in the process of re-making those gifts, but since that family doesn’t read my blog I’m not worried about revealing what they will get…hopefully in a few weeks. 🙁
In mid-December I shared my early efforts with weaving rag placemats. After having what I considered to be success, I decided to weave placemats for my sister, my niece, and my nephew. For my sister’s placemats I used some really beautiful fabric that our oldest sister had, which I saved when I cleaned out her apartment.
I was a tad disappointed that the beauty of that fabric didn’t really show through as much as I’d hoped, but I knew that they would be appreciated anyway.
While I had more gorgeous fabric from that oldest sister, they were all rather dark. After my experience with the above placemats, I thought my niece and nephew, each with young families, would prefer something lighter, so I made a trip to the fabric store and bought some cotton yardage for this purpose. My niece and family live on Hilton Head Island, so I decided she needed beachy colors. More weaving surprises…the sun was more identifiable than I’d expected, but not in a bad way.
My nephew and family live outside Dallas and have 2 very active little boys, so I chose yardage that seemed perfect to me. This time I was surprised that none of those words showed up, just the colors. That was actually what I was hoping for but didn’t expect. 😉 After accepting that the package was really lost I made another trip to the fabric store and managed to snag the last of this fabric to re-make the placemats. I haven’t finalized warp colors yet.
The other things I made for Christmas weren’t from my loom; they were made sitting the living room watching way too many cheesy holiday movies. But knitting isn’t a fast process, at least not for me. I made 6 pairs of these fingerless mitts, and am now making a 7th pair to replace the ones in the lost package. Cindy over at EweniquelyEwe turned me on to the pattern, which is free from Carolyn Greenwood on Ravelry. The pattern is called Keep the Leaf.
So much for the Christmas reveals. Life has been…interesting. About 10 days ago, almost home from our evening walk, Jack & I were…assaulted…by a pair of French bulldogs who had clearly escaped from their home. Real short version of the story – I was saved by a runner who heard me screaming. THANK HEAVENS FOR HIM!! It could have been SO much worse!
Jack & I were both emotionally traumatized, and Jack has a wound on his tail that doesn’t look bad and will heal. I ended up at urgent care with 2 wounds on my right hand from one of the Frenchies biting me, and bunch of bruising on that forearm from other attempted bites. Those wounds are healing well, BUT, my ulnar nerve had some trauma and as a result my pinky & ring finger have a constant tingling as if they’d fallen asleep. Numb but not really. I’ll be seeing an ortho doc on Tuesday, and am hoping he can give me better news and/or strategies than my PCP had, which is that it can take 6-12 months for the nerve to fully recover.
I’ve never seen those dogs before and have no idea where they live. I’ve been doing some asking around to see if anyone knows them, but so far no luck. I doubt I’ll ever know. I now have both pepper spray and one of those little emergency alarms. I don’t know that I could have made effective use of the pepper spray in the moment, but I feel like I could have activated that alarm, which would hopefully either sent the dogs running or alerted neighbors sooner.
Other than that, I keep line dancing, reading, doing yoga, baking sourdough bread, living my life.
Oh, yeah, and weaving. Thank you to Susan Poague for providing a great crackle draft. I’ve said it before and will say it again, I always think I don’t like crackle weaves – until I see them. Then I really like them. 🙂
I made a TINY modification to the treadling in Susan’s draft. I wove eight towels and listed them in my Etsy shop at 8AM Saturday morning. By 9AM four of the towels were sold, and three more were gone by 5PM. WOWOWOW!!! Truth be told, one woman – who has purchased countless towels from me – bought all seven – she’d been waiting for me to list more towels.
Now I must get back to re-making Christmas gifts. In February. Sigh.
Oh, No! What a traumatic experience for both you and Jack. I’m glad someone came to your rescue and that you both heal quickly and fully.
Your place mats and mitts made wonderful gifts.
Thanks, Mary. I always enjoy making gifts, and these were no exception. Although I’d rather not have to make them twice.
Oh dear on the dog attack – that’s scary. I hope you both heal quickly. I also hope you find out who owns them.
what a shame on the lost holiday gifts. Love the gloves, I haven’t made mine yet but have the pattern and yarn sitting in the queue. Your crackle towels are great!
The mitt pattern came from your recommendation, and I clearly jumped on it with both feet. Although I fully admit I am tired of these, and if I’d had another pattern handy I probably would have switched. As for the dogs, all I can do at this point is sigh.
Such wonderful and thoughtful gifts Peg! Each is so special! How lovely that you put so much thought and love into each of them! I’m sorry that your package was lost… how very kind of you to remake them.
Your newest towels are gorgeous and it’s easy to understand why they were bought so quickly.
What a horrible experience you and Jack had. I’m sure happy that that runner came to your aid before it got any worse. And definitely hoping that your Ortho Doc has some better news to share with you on Tuesday!
Thanks, Judy. I hope to finish the re-dos by the end of this week, although that may be wishful thinking. I’ll be filing for refund with the USPS by then though to not miss the deadline.