Amy Artisan

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Category: Celebrations (page 5 of 6)

A Mano

November 13, 2007 / / 10 Comments

…Handmade…

As someone who enjoys knitting and other handicrafts, it is obvious that I’m drawn to the handmade in life. The last week has provided me with an assortment of A Mano moments.

Stacey's Peru Hat

A co-worked recently returned from a vacation to Peru that included home stay lodging. As a way for the host families to recognize their guests, the mothers knit hats for everyone. Not only did the hat provide a signal in Peru, Stacey is using her hat to keep away the chill here in Chicago. I was in the office on Wednesday and had a chance to see this beautiful hat up close & personal. In a word – wow! The colors are so vibrant, the colorwork is so perfect. What a great way for her to remember this great trip.http://www.amyartisan.com/images/birthday_dinner_close.jpg This handmade colorwork piece is definitely something to aspire to.

Celebrating another year!

Another year, another birthday. To celebrate my birthday on Wednesday evening Greg, Jen, Kristy & I enjoyed a fabulous evening at a new restaurant in Chicago – A Mano. We were ‘drawn’ to the restaurant because it was part of the Bin 36 restaurants that we enjoy, it featured Italian food and they made many flavors of gelato in house. The evening didn’t disappoint. This is a great place to go with friends and share items off the menu – in fact, all of the pastas can be ordered as half portions – all the easier for sharing. As the name suggests, the menu focuses on the handmade – from the starters of celery root salad, prosciutto, mole salame and a lamb meatball/eggplant pizza to the hand-cut pastas (gnocchi, lasagna Bolognese, pumpkin ravioli, pappardelle with boar & raisins plus  a mushroom risotto) to the gelatos (we sampled chocolate, vanilla, chocolate-hazelnut, pumpkin, mascarpone, coffee, and a cranberry-apple sorbet) everything was delicious. They have a nice Italian wine list and were helpful in pointing us towards a “new to us” wine that we absolutely loved – a white Pinot Noir. Instead of a candle in the dessert, they brought out half glasses of a rose’ prosecco for us to toast my birthday – I thought that was a nice touch. It was an all around great evening and we all agreed that we needed to come back again soon to enjoy more of the A Mano specialities.

A baby blanket for Kristina

The last couple of weeks have been filled with some secret knitting. This weekend it was gifted and can now be revealed. My friend Kristina is pregnant with her first baby so one my Artisan Baby Blankets was in order. The gender of Baby C is not known so I went with a gender neutral color combo that also didn’t fall into the traditional baby colors. This blanket was knit with Cotton-Ease in the Violet & Almond colorways held together on size 10.5 needles. This was my first time working with Cotton-Ease and it was a great knit – I think it will be able to handle the task of being a well used baby blanket. I hear that the blanket is in the bassinet awaiting the arrival of Baby C.

With the holidays just around the corner my hands will be very busy in the coming weeks with the assorted handmade gifts that I’m hoping to finish up. (Hmm…my sweater may be taking a back seat to other projects for a while…) I also hope to spend some time in the kitchen making some handmade Christmas treats to share. What about you – what handmade experiences are you having these days?

In Rememberance

November 11, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Remember 

 

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

(photo by tt24813055)

Home of the Brave!

July 4, 2007 / / 7 Comments

Star Spangled Banner
Flickr picture from jcolman

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

As you celebrate this Independence Day holiday, take a moment to remember the service men and women who have defended this freedom – both those from war times and peace times in the past and those serving today.

I’m proud to come from a military family! The service of my dad and grandpa are part of who I am.

Grandpa as a Seabee
My grandpa was a Navy Seabee in the Pacific during World War II.

Artisan Dad in the Air Force
Artisan Dad was in the Air Force and was a part of the missile crews “underground” during Vietnam and the Cold War. As I’ve mentioned before, while on crew underground he would needlepoint to pass the time.

Wishing you a safe and happy July 4th!

Home & Handknits for the Holidays

December 29, 2006 / / 4 Comments

I hope that each of you had a lovely time celebrating the holidays with those near and dear to you. I was able to enjoy a week at home in the ‘Ville with the family.

If you had asked me 5 weeks ago what my Holiday Handknits would be this year I would have said “1 gift.” By the time that Christmas rolled around, it turned out that I had many more handknits to gift.

As I mentioned earlier, I knit several Christmas trees while at home for Thanksgiving. I also finished up a 6th tree that was gifted to family friends on Christmas Eve. In addition to my own “mantel forest” that I’d like to knit before next Christmas, I’ve had several other requests from Mom & Dad for trees to gift next year. Stay tuned.

In addition to the trees, here are the other handknits that I gifted this year.

First up, the “secret knit” that I worked on starting in August. Earlier this year, when my Dad & I were in the yarn aisle at JoAnn ETC he jokingly gave me a not so subtle hint about wanting a knit scarf. Now he has an Artisan scarf. I bought this yarn at Stitches Midwest – Brooks Farm Limited Edition Sock Yarn. The pattern is the “broken rib” pattern from the Knitting to Go deck (& sent to me by Judy for the Vacation Knitting Swap earlier this year) on size 9 needles. This was the perfect project for my plane commuting to/from Chattanooga. The colors of this yarn are gorgeous – blues, greens, browns – it goes great with many of Dad’s coats and jackets.

Dad's Scarf

Next up, the first installment of the “Artisan Dishcloth of the Month” club for Mom and Rebecca. Each month in 2007 they will get a new dishcloth from me. These are “grandma’s favorite” in the Sugar’n Cream Mistletoe colorway. The second dishcloth was knit (start to finish) at the Chicago airport last Thursday when the flight was delayed because of rain and fog.

Christmas Dishcloths

The “last minute” knit that I alluded to earlier was indeed a pair of Fetching gloves for my Grandma. (Stay tuned for a longer post on them…)

Additionally, a couple of my felted bowls were gifted.

On the receiving end of gift giving, I received 2 great items that will help with Artisan Knitting in the coming year: a swift and the One Skein Wonders book. Thanks Grandma!

Christmas at home with the family was a lot of fun. Our traditional Christmas Eve movie was on the 23rd this year – Night at the Museum was delightful. After church, on Christmas Eve family friends came over for a yummy dinner, gift exchange & a “newer” tradition of watching The Vicar of Dibley Christmas Lunch episode. Later in the evening we watched It’s A Wonderful Life as we always do on Christmas Eve evening. Christmas Day was lovely – when we first get up we open our Christmas stockings (which are all needlepoints from Artisan Dad) and then enjoy breakfast before opening the gifts under the tree. After delicious homemade cinnamon rolls and peppermint coffee the gift opening began. We don’t open the gifts as a free for all – rather, Dad hands out the gifts & only one of us opens a gift at a time. I think the gift givers are as excited to see the reactions to gifts as the gift receivers are to open the gifts.

The day after Christmas was a day trip up to Chattanooga to visit friends from my 6 month project there earlier this year.

While at home I also taught one of Rebecca’s friends how to knit. A couple of hours one morning and Sheila was well on her way to making a “grandma’s favorite” dishcloth. Sheila is the 3rd person that I have taught to knit – as I was teaching her I was very aware of “what” I was doing with each step of the dishcloth. Sheila is so crafty so she picked this up rather quickly.

As 2006 winds down and 2007 begins I’m looking forward to a couple of days of reading, knitting and cooking – some of my favorite things that seemed to be in short supply for a lot of this year.

O Tannenbaum!

December 8, 2006 / / 5 Comments

One of my favorite parts of decorating for Christmas is the Christmas Tree. The smell of the evergreen, the twinkle of the lights, the assortment of ornaments – each time you look at a decorated Christmas tree you see something new.

Our family collection of ornaments is a story of our lives – ornaments Mom & Dad hung on trees as children, momentos from places we have lived, collections of favorite things/animals, and on and on. There are so many ornaments that each year we choose which will be on the tree – I think we would need at least a 12 foot tree in order to put them all on the tree. Each year our collection grows – on the morning after Thanksgiving, Rebecca & I always have an ornament waiting for us at the breakfast table. For the last 10 years or more, most of the ornaments have been hand painted by Artisan Dad. (Note to self…need to photograph all of the hand painted ornaments & blog about them some day…)

Artisan Dad Ornament 2006

This year’s Artisan Dad ornament is very appropriate given the resurgence of my knitting this year.

Dad & I subscribe to the “you can never have too many lights” school of tree decorating. For the 8 foot tree at home I think we use at least 500-600 mini lights. For the last couple of years we have bought our tree on the day after Thanksgiving so that I can help Dad put the lights on the tree before coming back to Chicago.

Since I have been up in Chicago I have amassed quite an ornament collection of my own – I haven’t even brought any “childhood” ornaments from home. I’ve had assorted Christmas trees – decorating a potted Norfolk pine, a small fresh cut tree, silver ornament trees when work had me traveling in Dec. When I moved into my current apartment I started getting “full size” Christmas trees. Again this year the Frasier fir is in the living room by the window and the fresh cut evergreen wafts through the air. As I was putting each ornament on the tree I was reminded of dear friends and fun travel among other memories housed in the ornaments.

Artisan Tree 2006
Last December I came across Lolly’s posting about the fun knit Christmas trees that she pulled together based on Anjo’s tree pattern. I thought these were a great idea & made a mental note “next year.”

The day after Thanksgiving I was wondering what to knit since my scarf was finished. So I pulled up the blog entries about the trees and went to Hobby Lobby with Artisan Dad and Artisan Sister. We had a fun time picking out yarn combinations – although I think Dad & Rebecca were still a little skeptical about how these would turn out. We came home with 2 different tree combinations and after lunch I got started knitting. Within an hour, the first tree was knit up so I just kept going. In no time the 2nd tree was done and so I started on a 3rd tree. After dinner I ran out of one of the yarns so Mom & I were back to Hobby Lobby – while there we picked up yarn for more trees. By Saturday evening 5 trees were off the needles & fully assembled.

Knit Christmas Trees 

Row 1: For Aunt Clara Pearl in Ohio; For Mom & Dad; Row 2: For Rebecca; For Miss Doodlebug & Miss Butterfly
My modifications: All of these were knit as triangles & then seamed together. Some of the trees started with 36-40 stitches instead of 30. The smaller trees were size 11 needles, the larger were size 13. Instead of stuffing trees 1/2/3 I put them on floral styrofoam cones that had been wrapped in batting. The bottom of the cone was covered in felt. For the girlie trees, Mom made a tree form out of Christmas fabric with felt as the bottom – she then stuffed the cone, then put the tree knit over the form & stitched it to the felt bottom. The ornaments & bows on tree 1 are from the “mini-tree” section at Hobby Lobby.

The yarn combos: 1 & 2 = LB Chenille Thick & Quick, LB Wool-Ease Chunky, Yarn Bee Playful; 3 = LB Jiffy (2 colors), Yarn Bee Playful; 4 & 5 = TLC Essentials, Patons Brilliant, Yarn Bee Feather Wisp

These are a fun project! I think that a couple more may end up being gifted this Christmas. I also want to make some for my own Christmas decorations – although I’m pretty sure that they won’t be completed before next Christmas.

The girlie trees have already been sent to Texas & are in full play use by the girls. Aunt Clara Pearls’ tree is bringing some Christmas cheer to her room while she is in a nursing home receiving some rehabilitation services based on recent health issues.

Aunt Clara Pearl's Tree in Ohio

Thanks Ruth for sharing a picture of the tree in Ohio!

What are some of your favorite Christmas tree and Christmas ornament memories and stories?

Click here to share yours!

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