Not dinner leftovers, but material leftover from Christmas presents I made. You can see the description of how I made the material in an earlier post. It seems very cheery and perfect for New Year’s.

One is for a friend’s mother. He was describing my work to her and she couldn’t believe that fabric could be sent through the mail that way. So I’m sending her one. The other two are probably going to end up as thank you notes. But if anyone out there wants to do a trade – let me know and I’ll send you one.

I’m looking forward to the new year. I can’t wait to start on the Take it Further Challenge. I think I will do 12 little quilts for each monthly challenge. I don’t really do traditional quilting but I think they’ll be kind of like journal quilts. I’ve about decided to do 12″x15″ as the size. Not too big but more room then say post card size. I still have some WIP that needs to be finished. Mainly some felting that hasn’t been completed. So I need to get those projects done in the next several weeks so I can concentrate on new work. I did get three new books for Christmas that I ordered and are on their way. I’ll show you what I got when they arrive. I would also like to take an online class with Sue B. on journals at Joggles in the spring. Plus I’m still getting WOW online. So it sounds like I’ll keep myself busy! I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year and that 2008 will be a new start for whatever journey you would like to take. I’m having a wonderful time on my journey in fiber art and I can’t wait to learn more, do more, create more…

Here’s a journal I made today with the quilted rusted bits left over from my bil’s present where I cut out the center to put the bird pictures. I made a lining and used torn strips of cloth for the spine.

Here’s the inside. The journal can be removed and the cover used for something else.

Here’s the spine from the bottom and top before I attached it to the cover. It kind of reminds me of a caterpillar.

Look what I got in the mail after I got home from two hours of volunteer bell ringing. A beatiful postcard from Tina. Thanks Tina – it is beautiful.

The wool is from her sheep Mick Jagger – so I have a lock of Mick’s hair!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and Merry Christmas! This beautiful card came in the mail yesterday from Cathy! Thanks so much!

Here is an address book I made for my mother-in-law. Hers was such a mess I decided to do a new one for her and put all her addresses in for her. Boy was that a nightmare trying to figure it all out but it’s done =0) I used the same fabric I used on the photo album shown previously. I still have a little of that so if anyone wants to do a postcard swap after the new year, just leave me a comment.

Here’s the inside of the address book.

I finished the knitting needle case for my friend. Here is it rolled up. (poor picture, sorry)

Here’s the outside. I added hand stitched rectangles which you can’t see very well in this shot.

Here’s a closeup of the outside.

Here’s the inside. There is a large pocket on the left with velcro closure. There are three pockets in the middle for circular needles and then long skinny pockets on the right for regular knitting needles. I worked my poor little fingers to the bone getting this done not to mention by aching back! But she’s a big knitter so I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.

First things first, I don’t knit. All of these pieces were knit by someone else. One is a scarf that I got from the LYS for free and the other bits are by my friend Barb. She wanted to see how they would look if I needle felted them to a background. The background is a grey commerical felt with Icelandic wool needlefelted on top. Then I added the knitting fragments and needle felted from both sides. I am going to make Barb a knitting needle case for Christmas. I am planning on adding some FME but haven’t decided exactly what I want to do. Don’t have much time left, do I?

Closeup (fuzzy, sorry!)

More closeups…

Still more…

And the last bit – this is from the scarf.