quaking aspen, previously

Though I support the notion, I didn’t actually take the Handmade Pledge this past year/holiday season (mostly because I have a little boy who is enamored of Ninja Turtles and other superheroes), but ya know, I almost may as well have.

I papered, I crocheted, I even sewed some. Fun fun fun. But instead of telling you about it, I’ll just show you. Watch out people, I have discovered slide.com. And it uses my photos from Flickr instead of making me upload them to yet another location. Joy! Rapture! So, here you may view my holiday creations. (Less a dozen basic drawstring bags made from Christmas fabric for reusably wrapping gifts. It’s so pleasant to just fold up the pretty wrapping “paper” instead of wadding and stuffing and crinkling.)

In case the slide show doesn’t work for you, here’s a link to the photo set on Flickr.

Too bad I didn’t find this pattern for the TMNTs earlier — I might have gone handmade all the way… though it might be a little hard to convince my kiddos that Santa brings crocheted toys when they watch me make them (or something similar) all the time…. I’ll probably end up making these ninja turtles anyway, and a pink one for my daughter, who will be overjoyed.

ETA: I realized I neglected to link to all the lovely free patterns I used. Shame on me!

Little ninja: I used Caron Simply Soft Black and Light Country Peach, 9 mm black eyes. (Stay tuned: I’m making a ninja cat with this pattern… it’ll have blue cat eyes.)

Dragon: Caron Simply Soft Violet, embroidery floss for eyes, Perle cotton for claws.

Blue Totoro: Caron Simply Soft Dark Country Blue, Red Heart Soft Yarn white, black Perle cotton, felt, safety eyes (9mm)

White Totoro: Red Heart Soft Yarn, white, Caron Simply Soft pink, black embroidery floss, felt

Soot gremlins (aka fuzzballs): Bernat Fun Fur, black; googly eyes. I made one large and five small.
I also plan to make some acorns from this free pattern. Though perhaps not with faces.

Tiny airplane: Caron Simply Soft White; Red Heart Soft, Cherry; blue embroidery floss for windows.

Gumball: my pattern of course. I used Caron Simply Soft Brites, Watermelon. Also felt, 9 mm eyes, a flocked 10mm nose, and a 6mm eye for the mouth.