Wednesday, February 15, 2012

My Creations for the Swaps :)

Some of you have inquired about the items I sent people in these swaps. The thrill of receiving gifts is amazing, but I love the adventure of picking out just the perfect gift for someone else. Ravelry is an amazing social media platform.

Here's the people I got to make things for: a woman in upstate New York who knits sweaters for herself and baby clothes for other people; she likes neutral colors, local items, herbal and green tea, and dark chocolate.

Second assignment: a woman from Massachusetts who is gluten-free and knits and participates in swaps frequently. This swaps was Valentine's Day themed.

The New Yorker was a puzzle. I had just purchased an amazing book of early modern English designs with a beautiful scarf that I thought might keep my partner warm. Problem: it's advertised as a man's scarf!! Solution: make it a woman's scarf. True to nature, I like creative solutions to complex problems. I picked a very soft off-white yarn and matched it with a plum yarn. I was a bit worried that the plum yarn might not be considered neutral enough, but I decided that it was dark and the three stores that I went back to all had different selections of other colors that were either ugly or decidedly not neutral. It seems that one of the characteristics that make this scarf masculine were the original color -- chocolate -- and the width of the scarf. The change in colors plus a narrower scarf made it sufficiently feminine.
I love the texture on the this design. I'm always looking for ways to learn new skills and this was definitely a fun project!!

As far as local items, I wanted to get things that were related to the school that I'm at, but it was hard to find anything sophisticated. I ended up buying Jasmine Green Tea and Dark Chocolate Crisps at Trader Joe's (which they don't have in upstate New York.) Then, I also purchased a postcard & a pin from my school.



The Valentine's Day project had lower budget, so I wanted to share some gluten-free goodness along with a textured scarf that looked festive. Here's what I came up with:
Shortbread cookie mix and hard shaped cookie cutters: delicious!!

No comments:

Post a Comment