Early Bird Christmas Crafting

I joined the Early Bird Christmas Crafting Challenge a little late.  The challenge for the month of June was 'Mini Gifts.' Since I had already made a couple of mini gifts (multiples of each), I wasn't too worried about June. I have at least 10 of  the hand knitting face cloths and hand made soap bars ready for wrapping - or whatever I decide to do to prepare them for gift giving. I'm thinking a small muslin bag made with my hand dyed fabric would be nice.  Maybe I can come up with something 'Christmas-y' before time to ship them off.

I'm using my "Organized Christmas" notebook that I made a couple of years ago and never used.  I started updating the calendars and added some lined paper for keeping up with my Christmas Crafting.  But now it's July and I had better get busy!

The July challenge is 'Home Decor Gifts'.  For this first gift, I'm killing two birds (but not the Early Bird!) with one stone.  I'm creating a home decor gift - a square baby-sized quilt that can be used for a baby, a table topper, or a wall hanging.  I'll decide later who the recipient will be. {I want to give it to my friend who is planning another baby, but since she's not pregnant yet, I can't officially say it's going to her.} But I'm using my hand dyed muslin and will have a sample of work for photographing, promotion, and marketing. 

Here is the table I cut the pieces on today.  I moved the table in front of my computer so I could watch movies on Netflix while I cut the pieces.

Tonight I'm working on another home decor project.  This one was originally planned for me, but may go to someone else.  It is a knitted afghan. This past winter, I used my shawl for blanket rather than wearing it as a shawl.  I decided to 'frog' it and use the yarn (worsted weight) for an afghan.  I found more yarn to go with it and have been happily working on a mitered squares, patch work afghan.  I'll keep working on this till its big enough - either when I run out of yarn or get tired of working on it.  I've found more colors and some hand spun to use with it, and I love the direction it's going.

I'll try to have photos soon of other projects that I've completed and others I have planned along with progress photos of the quilt and the afghan. Till then, take care and enjoy!