christmas crafts

[jaina]

I made stuff for people for Christmas this year! In point of fact, I made:

• A plush Weighted Companion Cube for my brother
  
• A hat knitted with BITCHIN' FLAMES for my brother
  
• A lace neckwarmer for my mama
  
• A new Christmas stocking for Rogue

1. Giant Plush Weighted Companion Cube

Back in...October, I think it was, my brother emailed me with this link and the subject line "Christmas?". Then he added, "Wait, can you double-size it?" Well sure, I thought, how hard could that be?

HAAAAAA. It turns out, it's not really hard, just CRAZY TIME-CONSUMING. The corner bits had to be appliqued by hand, and I was only able to get 3 of them done by the time we had to fly out. I was able to find a box to exactly fit the cube so we could check it on the plane (too big for suitcases!) and then I finished it over the week we were home for Christmas.

. . .

Specs
It's 18"x18"x18" overall (the inner dark gray cube is 16" across, and the corner pieces extend 1" above that). It's made of fleece, with a little bit of pink ribbon. The inner structure was fun-- I quickly realized that just stuffing it with polyfill would leave me with a Companion Sphere, so I used the 1/2" foam I had leftover from making Jafar's headdress and Mickey's ass torso and made a 16" cube out of that. Then I took the leftover big pieces of foam and made another cube that exactly fit inside the first, and *then* I chopped up all the other foam leftovers into little pieces and stuffed the foam cube with those and a little polyfill. So it's still squishy, but there's a good firm cube structure there. The hearts and circles were appliqued with a machine satin stitch, and the outer edge pieces were all stuffed with batting or polyfill and then appliqued by hand. A lot of work, but I was happy with the result, and my brother was *ecstatic.* Apparently his housemates are going to be pleased too; they all love Portal.

2. Bitchin' Flames Hat

Two years ago, I made my brother bitchin' flames socks for Christmas. I realized I had some fire-y colors in wool in my stash, so I thought hey, I wonder if I could use the pattern to make a matching hat? Apparently yes!

. .

Specs
The hat is 64 stitches around, just like the sock, with worsted-weight Wool of the Andes held double on 10 1/2 circular needles. Took me a few tries to make the stranding loose enough to stretch over his head. He wore it all week so I think it's a success! Definitely needs a fleece cap under it though, if he's going to be wearing it in the wind.

3. A Christmas Neckwarmer

I thought my mom might like a pretty, lacy, Christmas-y neckwarmer for chilly days.

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Specs
Pattern is Pretty Thing by the Yarn Harlot, which is exactly what it says on the tin-- a very pretty thing! I used laceweight yarn (Elann Baby Lace Merino in Ruby) and just held it double, which got me gauge when I swatched. It might’ve turned out a smidge small, but it still seems to work just fine. Blocking was a little weird since I wasn’t sure quite how much to stretch it, but after the second time I was pretty pleased with it.

4. Rogue's Christmas stocking

My mom, dad, brother and I all have handmade stockings-- Mom's and Dad's are felt, bro's is embroidered, mine is knitted. Mom embroidered Rogue's name on a cute storebought stocking, which has worked great so far, but I really wanted to make him a handmade one too. Three years ago, I found a kit I loved-- it had LIGHTS!-- and I've been working on it since. (Felt kits are a *lot* more work than they look!) But I finally finished it, lights and all, in time for Christmas this year.

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Comments

[brightcupenny.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I know, when I saw the kit with the lights I was like MUST OWN THIS NOW.