"Her name be Hannah!"

For each of my brother's children I have cross-stitched a Care Bear and sewed it up into a pillow, an example can be found here. His youngest recently celebrated her first birthday and I figured it was about time she received hers as well. I had the cross-stitching finished before she was born (or maybe right after), and found the fabric in my stash. I just never got around to finishing it earlier. During one of my brother's visits, I was holding and chatting with the baby, and called her "Hannie". Her older sister quickly corrected me and said "Her name be Hannah!"

Here is Hannah's pillow-


A close up of the cross-stitch-


It's a good thing I finally finished since Hannah will be a big sister herself this year and I need to get started on another Care Bear.

Christmas Time

As has become a tradition of sorts, I made the gifts I gave to my siblings families for Christmas again this year. This is a project I have been wanting to do for ages but was unable to until this year.

When we were young our Mother crocheted a Nativity, or Creche for us to play with. When my parents were getting the their house ready (ie moving their stuff to a new location in the house so my Sister would have room for her things) to leave on their Mission to Paraguay I came across the pattern and snagged it. It was a photocopy from a magazine, and kind of difficult to follow so I decided to re-type it into an easier version for me to read. I still couldn't read "crochet" though.

After my Parents moved to California for their mission there I would take the pattern and supplies with me on visits in the hope my Mother could help me get started. Things never really worked out with that so after they returned home this Summer I "made" her sit down and help me. Here is the results -

This one is for my Sister and her Family


And this one is for my Brother and his family.
My mother often mentioned she needed a baby Jesus for each of us, so we wouldn't fight (she also said this of my sister, meaning she needed twins so my brother and I each had a baby sister to play with ;) ). Because of this I decided to make a baby Jesus for each of my nieces and nephews, so for my sister's family this meant two more and for my brother this meant 5 more. I also made a manger and filled it with yarn hay for each baby.

There was not any pattern for a "stable" so I grabbed some plastic canvas, florist wire, Tacky Glue, thread, yarn, and felt and "threw" these together. My Sister's was first and after finishing I found out it was 1.5" to tall for any box to be found, so with my brother's I adjusted the height and added the star to the wall. My sister has a star as well it's just detachable. I lucked out and a co-worker sent my team a HUGE can of popcorn, leaving a box perfect to ship her nativity to Washington!

I am happy with how they turned out, and so happy they are finished. I was literally finishing the last details as my brother and his family drove up the driveway :)

The end of Christmas

The following two were done for my siblings and their spouses. They are very different and challenged me in different ways. The first was for the Murris. It's called Blackwork (for obviously reasons) but I cheated a bit and added burgundy colored beads instead of black. They're room is white, black and red so that's why I decided to do this one for them.

This was for the Westergards. It's inspired from a Thomas Kincade original, who they really enjoy. It used some metallic threads that made the lights look sparkly.

Ornaments Galore

I made an ornament for each of my family members from Parents to still in-utero (at the time) nieces.
For Papa #1

For Mama #1

For Brother #1

For Brother-in-Law #1

For Sister-in-Law #1

For Sister #1



For Nephew #1

For Niece #1

For Nephew #2

For Niece #2

For Nephew #3

For Niece #3

For Niece #4

Christmas Day Collection

This year I spent the holiday with the Borg Family - Dad, Mom, 4 Children, 2 Children-In-Law, and new Puppy. I was able to create and finish them all with supplies I mostly already had, I just had to get a couple of small things.

First up are the Parents. A Christmas tree of snowflakes, different types of fibers and beads. Fun and quite pretty I think.

Next up is Child #4. The hat and scarf are made from granny squares, an experiment that could not have turned out better. I had no idea about size and was worried it would be too big or too small, it was neither, it was perfect! Also and little cross-stitch ornament.



Child #1's gift can be seen in my previous post.

What's this, you ask? Another successful experiment.


A crochet Checkerboard and Checkers :)

This one was for Child #2 and spouse, red and blue being the favorite colors. I also made one for Child #3 and spouse, this time green and purple. It got away before I remembered to take a photo. Understandable since I was pretty much working on it up until it was unwrapped. I also made an ornament for each of the the couples.