Darning

I've long been interested in the idea of darning but never had a reason to try it. Until now. I have a pair of knitted socks that I love that recently developed a rather large hole.

I was pretty bummed but set it aside intending to repair it eventually. I mentioned it in passing to my mother and she found a darning egg for me to use in her stash.

Now, I'm aware that typically one darns a garment in matching yarn. But that seems boring to me. I decided to follow the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, embracing a repair as part of the objects history and highlighting it instead of hiding it. So I darned my green sock with red-orange yarn. 

Not bad for my first attempt

I have a small stash of remnants of sock yarn now, just waiting for the next repair.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 1

It's already Christmas Eve, friends! So I have just one last craft to share with you. It's a simple one, made from felt, glitter, and embroidery floss, but it's the symbols I've been focused on all month. 

May you have a blessed Christmas.

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 2

I've made a lot of puppets in recent years but my experience with marionettes is limited. I really wanted to try my hand at it this year and I settled on Scrooge as my subject. I fashioned a head and hands from some air dry clay.

If you look closely, though, you can see that as it dried, the head cracked. So I had to make a second attempt with a ping pong ball and hot glue. Given it's haphazard nature, I neglected to get any photos of the puppet in process. I formed the body from a chunk of foam, the clothes from scrap fabric.

The result is a bit rough but I think that suits Scrooge's character.
 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 3

I learned, recently, about the tradition of the yule goat. As a huge fan of goats, I was instantly intrigued. Once I saw a picture I knew I wanted to try making one of my own.

Of course, yule goats are made of straw which I do not have. What I do have in abundance is packing paper so I thought I'd try making one of shredded paper with a paper straw framework.

The assembly was a bit haphazard, so I don't have any process shots but I do have one of the finished goat. It's a bit rough but I'm happy enough with the result that I'll probably try it again in future.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 4

I have a thing about craft kits that have you make several identical items. I understand they're supposed to be used by a group but that bugs me even more. I hate the idea of a whole group of kids walking out of an event with identical projects. So when I get a kit of that sort I do my best to personalize each item. I loved these sloths and tried to use the pieces of foam in unique ways so each sloth is a little different.

 

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 5

Some crafts are big and involved. And some are little and dumb. And I love them anyway. There's just something about giving an unexpected figure a hat or reindeer antlers that makes me very happy. And that's what I've done here. I dressed a bird skeleton for winter and tasked a dinosaur with pulling Santa's sleigh. They'll be joining my narwhal, voodoo doll, and fruitcake (part of previous countdowns).

Crafty Christmas Countdown: 6

It's become one of my traditions to add to my Christmas farm every year. I decided to go low key this year, adding just pipe cleaner wreaths to the fence.