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Isn’t this adorable! It’s an advent Calendar made from mini hats and mittens. Now, before you say, “Duh, Terrye, isn’t that a bit obvious”, let me say this.
No. To me it wasn’t. I had to read the description. Ok, due to all of the recent snowfall, my mind may be a bit frozen.

But before you dismiss this as the “I don’t do an Advent Calendar” person I am, er, I mean you may be, think garlands, tree trimming, wrap arounds for stuff (thinking the vertical beams in my log cabin), gift packages… I loved it!

This time of year there are so many cool things to blog about, new patterns, tried and true recipes, don’t even get me started on the mulled wine issue!

So much knitting to do, so little time. As the Harlot says “You tempt the Christmas knitting fates and you get smacked!” She’s a stitch!

And, finally, because I have 2 new grand-dogs (pomeranians) this year and more time than brains), how about this? A Free Cat Hoodie Pattern! (These poms are way smaller than a lot of cats, work with me here). http://www.craftleftovers.com/blog/archives/774

That’s all I have to ramble on and on about today. Hope I’ve given you lots of knitting ideas!

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Printable Cross Stitch Sheets Make it Easy to Cross Stitch on Clothes

Lately I have been feeling like all of my clothes are looking a little worn or feeling a little tired. I don’t want to buy new clothes, though, so there’s been a lot of mending, altering and adding special touches to things that otherwise might get overlooked or not worn at all. 

As an example, not too long ago I added a little bit of embroidery to a T-shirt, which was a lot of fun to do and made me start eyeing all my solid-colored garments and wondering how they might look with some stitching added. 

Of course you can cross stitch on garments, too, whether T-shirts or woven tops, skirts, pants and more. But it can be tricky to transfer cross stitch designs to your garment to make stitching easier. 

Much like with embroidery, it’s great to use a water soluble stabilizer to keep your fabric in place while you stitch and to transfer your design (or your cross stitch grid at least) while you’re stitching. Then you just wash away the stabilizer when you’re done and it will look like the stitching has always been there. 

Ashley General Handmade uses Sulky Stick ‘n Stitch, which is a product I use, too. It’s easy to use and washes away cleanly. 

To make it even easier, she designed some printable cross stitch grids at different counts that you can print out to draw your own cross stitch designs, but you can also print the grid right on the Sulky, so you can stitch on top of squares and then remove them when you’re done. 

Brilliant, right? 

She has pages as big as 8 count and all the way down to 20 (remember: the bigger the number the smaller the stitches will be) that you can download and print to make your own designs and also use to make stitching on clothing easier. I’m definitely going to try this the next time I want to cross stitch on fabric!

You can grab her printables over at Ashley General Handmade.

[Photo: Ashley General Handmade]