not all my own work

I haven't been on holidays or lazing about! it's just the usual rush before christmas over here - to finish everything in time some things like blogging just have to suffer:((

but it's not only the time of rushing around and hectic jobs - it's also that time of the year, where lovely surprises arrive in the mail! like the years before the OLG has organized another christmas exchange and I was lucky in my draw for a parter for the second time - I was paired with a weaver again, which is great, because weaving is one of the textile crafts I am not really good at. and especially not this good:

aren't those bags gorgeous? they are made in fine silk in a double weave - the outside has this intricate pattern (here's the star theme), on the inside this is invisible, the fabric is smoothly woven! fantastic work, I wish I was this good! they have two small silky drawstrings to close them - or to use them as loops for hanging them up somewhere. to take the photo I hung them up in a golden yew in the garden - but I am thinking of cutting some nice evergreen branches to bring them inside. I'll hang up those pretty baggies as decorations - our tree is always full and features "one dog from each village" - and I fear that the bags will be drowned out by all that stuff!
this is a kumihimo braid, which kept the baggies together - handmade from silk yarn too!

thank you to my exchange partner Rachel - I love my baggies and I'll find a way to display them for the rest of the year too, not only on christmas!

of course not only do I receive presents, I also make some! this looks like a shapeless flop of knitted fabric - but it's not going to stay like this. in fact it's already travellling around in circles in the washing machine. it's going to be a laptop bag - without the knitting needle for closure of course. I handspun a two-ply from wollpoldi's south american top (spins nicely!), made a large sample to count out the gauge - and knitted a huge, floppy, shapeless thingy - which hopefully changes into the expected sturdy felted bag. one thing already didn't quite work out - the dye was labelled green - but I think it should be called turquoise! it doesn't really matter all that much with this project - but DH was rather lucky that it hit the bag - and not his planned cable patterned sweater! he asked for green - and I don't think he'd fancy wearing turquoise instead:))

well, I'll better go down and check - it might need another cycle, which I won't find out by sitting at the computer doing surfing, blogging and emailing!