Drunken Monkey Sews, Too

My good buddy Kara has inspired me to sign up for a few swaps lately, so I thought I'd better post a little bit so the other participants know I'm still breathing!  One of the swaps is a handmade holiday swap hosted by Kara herself!  I have big, exciting knitting AND sewing plans for my swap partner, but I'm not ready to show anything yet.  The second swap is a crafty Christmas swap among my Green Club peeps, and I have AMAZING AWESOME-NESS planned for that swap partner, too... but I have to keep that hidden just in case she knows who she is.   

The last swap is a fat quarter fabric swap, and I got my color assignment last week!  I have to send in 8 orange fat quarters and I'll get one fat quarter of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and gray in return!  I'm super excited about some mystery rainbow FQs! (My other two orange FQ's are on their way even so now as we speak!)

I've been a teensy bit obsessed with this drawstring project bag tutorial lately, with EIGHT finished project bags, FIVE more in progress, and TWO more cut out and ready to start.  I think I might be done after that.  (There are only six in this picture because two of the finished bags were snatched up by my mom the last time she was in town... except now I'm thinking maybe I've finished NINE bags, because I think she actually snatched up three of them...)

There are plenty of quilts in the planning, in-progress, and finished stages, as well.  Along with at least two quilts that are in the planning/gathering fabric stages, I recently finished a 46" x 66" quilt...

And the top for my pirate monkey quilt (86" x 86") is finally finished!  I have to piece the back together and get it to my favorite long-arm quilter on Thursday this week.  I'm SO excited about this quilt!  Chaka has already gotten some practice sleeping on it, and it seems to have passed inspection.  

To completely mix things up, I also threw a cross stitch project into the rotation!  Kara (Again! I have got to stop following her around!) inspired me with some fun, modern cross stitch projects, and I had to try it for myself.  I found this awesome Etsy shop and went to town.  Here's my first finished cross stitch project in more than ten years!  I already have plans for more cross stitch excitement.  (Just don't tell Wendy!)

Phew!  Just imagine what I'll be able to accomplish when I'm NOT in grad school anymore!!  Just kidding... I'm planning on getting back together with my couch after next March... :)

Stuff With Yarn

It's been so long since I've done anything here that I almost started a whole new blog instead of just writing a new post.

You'll be happy to know that I made some stuff with yarn over the weekend.  It's not so much that I haven't made anything with yarn lately, it's just that I haven't *finished* anything that I've made out of yarn.  I can't remember the last thing I finished.  Maybe a shark?  I don't know.

Anyway, I started a new project over the weekend and FINISHED IT in the same weekend.  Amazing, I know.  Wanna know what it is?  Of course you do.

Sock monkey booties!!

Ravelry linky here.

I used Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Snow, Cherry, and Taupe.  I used a 3.5mm crochet hook and found buttons in the button box to complete the booties.  Everything came from my stash!  Sorry, I hope you were sitting down.  Now I just have to find somebody's 6-9 month old to force them on.  I mean, uh, give them to.

I've been working on a Hitchhiker Scarf off and on for a while now, but it's still a skein and a half from being finished.  I might have another unfinished project or two around here somewhere, but I doubt it.

Since I started grad school I've actually done more sewing than knitting.  Something about cutting out fabric makes me feel less guilty about not doing homework than knitting does.  I currently have three quilts in progress and a slew of tinier quilted projects in the works.  Sweetwater's Reunion line is my current favorite fabric in the whole world.  Click that linky to see lots of excellent photos of the fabric.  Click through the rest of that blog while you're at it... I love their stuff.

Okay. We now return you to this episode of American Ninja Warriors.