Tuesday 5 February 2013

Christmas Gifts 2013

After the success (I hope anyway!) of making all my Christmas gifts to friends and family last year I thought it would be a good idea to repeat it again this year. Although this time with bigger projects. But the same amount of time.... Err... yes. Despite my best efforts, and having started planning and picking out projects as early as September, the actual making of the gifts didn't end up starting until mid-November. Oops! I did manage to get most of them done though, which was some sort of miracle.

So here's a selection of the gifts I made, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of some of the things I made, but this will give you the gist I'm sure!

One of Planet June's succulent crochet collections in a cardboard presentation box

       

 
(And nicely wrapped up of course, that's part of the fun)




And a hand carved stamp set.




A pack of hand made stitch markers


A pair of rice filled hand warmers (tute here)











A knitted rugby ball, adorned with the England rugby team's rose logo (painstakingly cut out of felt then each piece individually hand sewn on, more fun that it sounds actually!)




I made two pairs of socks for various people, although not without major frustration! One pair needed just a tiny bit more yarn than I had in the right colour (this was one of the late presents, so time was of the essence), so they ended up like this! And the other I tried to knit part of whilst in a pub (tut) and had to frog back this much (*sob*) But in the end they were ok! I used this pattern  for them. A nice straight forward heel turn, and an easy pair of socks to knit, as long as you're paying attention!













This little amigarumi Hello Kitty/Totoro was another late gift, although in my defense I had no idea it was so awkward to find safety eyes! (I found mine here in the end, good price and sent as quick as you'd expect for something coming from China to the UK)

 












And finally le Boof's patience paid off and he got his cardigan I'd been promising since July. Not strictly a Christmas gift, but it was finished in my big crafty post-Christmas spell when I was trying to get everything promised to people done! It probably would have been finished though if this hadn't happened. I've not had much luck with flexible needles finer than 5mm :S













As well as hand crafted gifts I did a few small food hampers. These included:


Peppermint creams (made with Ma's traditional Christmas recipe)



Butter tablet fudge, which came out nice and crunchy (yay for achieving my first proper hard-ball set on a sweet!)




A gingerbread house, which I got the icing just right for this year. No mugs holding up my gingerbread walls while they set!




I've got lots more lovely Christmas things to share with you, but that'll be for another post methinks!


No comments:

Post a Comment