'Tis (almost) the season

This photo might lead you to believe that my Christmas decorations are up already, but you would be mistaken...



pattern: Christmas Rudolph Reindeer by Loly Fuertes
yarn: Patons Classic Wool in Taupe (plus miscellaneous worsteds in white & red)
needles: 2.75 mm
misc: button eyes and a ribbon around his neck



Well, what can I say? It's RUDOLPH, and y'all know I have a fawn collection right? (well, I tend to bust those fawns out over the holidays more for some reason...) but still. I simply could.not.resist this knit and he turned out super adorable.

I know I always say "I'm not a toy knitter" but a couple of them manage to find their way into the queue every year for one reason or another it seems. And when I started this little guy a couple weeks back it was one of those gray November Sundays where I refused to change out of my P.Js for the entire day (and subsequently managed to finish him in one day as well).



It always seems to be the little knits that languish in my queue for like 2 or 3 years and then when I finally get around to it and bust it out in one day I wonder why I put it off for so long.

You can check out my project page on Ravelry for more notes on this little dude, but suffice to say the pattern is at times a bit vague. I think something is possibly lost in the translation, it's another of those patterns that uses the word "knit" in a very general way..."knit this"-- apparently interchangeable with "make this"...not unlike an Amy Sedaris sweater pattern wherein the "pattern" simply states: "Instructions: knit a sweater" (heh).

Still I fear the process of focusing on this one fiddly little thing for such a concentrated period of time has put me down for the count for the forseeable future as I have not knit a stitch since. In fact I think something about those small needles rubbing up against the sides of my fingers has given me some fresh new hell of repetitive strain (no doubt exacerbated by the fact that I am on a computer all day long...) so I am having to force myself to take a bit of a break and let my fingers re-coup. (Yes this seems unbelieveable with Xmas less than a month away, but for the most part all of that knitting is done at least).

But if nothing else this unexpected knitting sabbatical has allowed me time to turn my attention toward my latest obsession: Papercraft!

And to that I can only say "where the hell have I been???" There are SO many cute FREE downloadable/printable PDFs out there that allow you to make the most awesome stuff!

Case in point:

This Calendar of the month club from Curiosity Group.





People, there's a record player! A RECORD PLAYER!



Now granted, these are all from a 2011 calendar, but one can assume there will be some more good ones coming for 2012 as well. right? right.

Perhaps something more festive?


fawn from Strumpets Crumpets


Santa from Ataque Mutante


And lots more of these on the Canon website.

Or if wasting tons of coloured ink in your printer is not really your bag, you can use some colour copy paper instead...



I made a handful of these last night...they look great hanging on your tree, you can do up the giant one and turn it into a ceiling lamp, or just pile them all in a bowl like I did, super cute and super fun.

Who knew?! (Not me, obviously) The world of paper craft is massive it seems and you can find that ball pattern at How About Orange. In fact that's a great blog to get you started because she links to all sorts of fun paper crafts elsewhere in addition to her own.

I could post a million pictures of all the super cute papercraft patterns I've been looking at lately, but that might be overkill. Just go sharpen your scissors and fire up the printer!

But make sure you don't abandon you knitting altogether...