gift

You are my dream come true . . .

The past 16 months have been a struggle in our home, & even though our relationships with each other have remained strong, it hasn’t always been easy to appreciate each other. It is hard to express your love to others when you are unhappy & it’s easy to take your family for granted.

As I thought about what I wanted to give to my valentines this year, I thought about how fortunate I am to have a loving, supportive husband. I thought about how lucky we are to have 2 beautiful, healthy children who challenge us & cause us to grow, becoming better people in the end. I thought about when I was younger, how I would dream about my future family & wonder what it would be like to have a husband & children of my own. Now that I am here, I find myself extremely grateful for the ones in my life that I call my family, and even though our life together is by no means perfect, they are my dream come true.

I wanted to find a creative way to express this to my family, so I made each one a dream catcher. This is the one that I made for my husband. It is for both of us really. I made it with our wedding & our life together in mind.

The hoop is made from Wisteria vines. Our Wisteria is one of the first trees we planted in our yard after purchasing our home.

I tied the webbing with hemp & added some “Indian beads” that I found on the beach of Lake Michigan. I also added a piece of drift wood and some sea gull feathers that I had gathered from up there. The lake has always been a significant place to us. We had some of our first dates up on the lake & we had our wedding ceremony there on the beach as well.

I had a few pieces of broken stalks from the bouquet of orchids that I carried down the isle. Those were tied together & added to the dream catcher.

The strips of fabric are a sheer white fabric that I cut from my wedding dress & a smokey silk from a bridesmaid dress.

The orchids too, were taken off of my wedding dress. These things were just getting dusty hanging in my closet for years. I find this to be a much better way to honor these sacred textiles.

Hawks are one of my husband’s favorite birds. It is symbolic to him. A close friend to him noticed that our family collects feathers, & gave us some hawk feathers that he had found. This was a meaningful gift to my husband so I added one of these feathers to the dream catcher as well.

All said & done, it took me 2 days to create this dream catcher. I loved the hours I spent making it, the quiet time I spent reflecting on our marriage & the memories that came to mind. I love all the symbols with their significance only known by my love & I.

I’m not usually one to get hyped up over Valentine’s Day, but this year it was a meaningful day. I was excited to give everyone their gifts & they all seemed to enjoy the dream catchers.

Valentine Truffles xoxo

These valentine truffles are the PERFECT gift for a fiber artist/scrapbooker/art journalist. They are crocheted chocolate (or white chocolate) on the outside, & in center, there is a fiber surprise! There might be a few yards of silk ribbon, some antique buttons, novelty yarn. . .

On the bottom of each truffle, there is a little “tag”. Pull on this tag until the crochet stitches begin to unravel (you may need to help it along bit to get it started). As the truffle unravels the filing is revealed.

You can find a pattern for making these truffles here. They would make a great party favor for a knitting circle’s valentine’s day party!

I will be offering one lucky follower this valentine’s day gift of 6 assorted truffles to say “Thanks for being apart of my knitting circle!” For your chance to win, just click on the “follow The Fiber Nest” button on the sidebar. The winner will be announced on Valentine’s Day!

xoxo

Valentine Truffles xoxo

You can find a pattern for making these truffles here. They would make a great party favor for a knitting circle’s valentine’s day party!

xoxo

knitted tissue cozy

IMG_0039 copy

mka101536_wi08_tissue_l As I was looking for some handmade stocking stuffer ideas on Pintrest, I came across these felt hankie holders made by Martha Stewart.

It gave me the idea to create some knitted ones. Here is a pattern I came up with while making some.

Materials:

worsted weight stash yarn in 2 (or more) colors (or any yarn that you prefer for the project)

a pair of straight needles US9 ( or an appropriate size for your preferred yarn)

a yarn needle

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Using an i-cord cast on, cast on 20 stitches in the contrasting color (cc).

Switch to the main color (mc) yarn and knit in stockinette stitch for 6.5″ ending with a knit row.

With the cc yarn purl on row.

Bind off using an i-cord bind off.

Turn the knitting wrong side out and fold so that the two i-cords overlap slightly in the center and sew the top & bottom shut with a mattress stitch.

Weave in all the loose ends.

Embellish with a crocheted edging, or embroidered designs. You could also add some ribbon or buttons.

boys tissue cozy

Santa baby . . .

. . . slip some needles under the tree, for me
I’ve been an awful good girl
Santa baby, and hurry down the chimney tonight

This year for the holidays I am introducing these fabulous Santa Knitting Needles to the shop. They are fantastic. Each set has been masterfully crafted using Blood wood & Maple to create a striped effect. Each set includes 1 needle with a Blood Wood cap & 1 needle with a Maple cap.

There are only 8 of these special edition knitting needle left. So place your orders now!

Also, on Monday, Honey over at Mondorfment is hosting a give away for one of my portable weaving looms. If you would like to have a chance at winning one of these, make sure to remember to hop on over & sign up!

baby Isla

I made this blanket for a friend who had a baby over the summer. I used Jared Flood’s pattern Hemlock Ring (FREE on Ravelry!) with some stash yarn. I’m sorry, I can’t remember what it is. This is my favorite blanket pattern. I have to start the pattern when I am alone and without any distractions. The center flower section is pretty easy to get messed up on if I’m distracted. The feather and fan section of the blanket I now have memorized so I can travel with the project. I also don’t knit the entire blanket when I’m making it a baby blanket.

I made two and given both away as baby blankets. Next, I want to make full sized blanket (in yak of course!) for our home.

Along with the blanket I made this fantastic baby sweater. I used Kelly Brooker’s pattern Puerprium Cardigan (also FREE on Ravelry). I was able to this knit up in a day with Caron Spa (a bamboo blend) yarn. I think this will be my stand by for hand knit baby gifts.