Christmas Crafts

Well, now that Christmas is over, and I've given out all my gifts, I can actually do a post highlighting what I've been doing for the past 2-3 (if not more) months. :) I am so proud of many of these things, they turned out wonderfully, so sorry, this is a bit of a bragging post, but at least it has lots of pictures.

 

So, I guess I'll list in order, by who received them, since most of my gifts were homemade. We start with my parents. Mom got this shawl that I crocheted. *grumbles about camera not showing colors as well* It turned out gorgeous, enough so that I want to make another one for me, despite the pattern being a beast because of those longer, stretched stitches.

 

Dad got a goodie basket, and I don't have any pictures of the treats. He had a heart attack a year and a half ago, and has been seriously watching his diet since then (for the obvious good reasons). Well, I wanted to give him some treats so that he could enjoy the seasonal treats, without worrying about the cholesterol or the sugar. So, he got pumpkin cookies, molasses-ginger cookies, banana bread, caramels, and a couple other things, all of which are safe for his consumption, though the caramels do have cream, so he needs to be a little more careful with those.

  

Melody (my younger sister) is whose name we had this year on my side of the family. Since I knew a full year ahead of time, she definitely got the most labor-intensive gift. I found this pattern and thought it looked gorgeous, and then picked the colors (which are the colors of her room) and got to work. (last year right after Christmas) Then, as is not uncommon for me, only after I started, did I realize what the pattern was  like. (Maybe I should think of these things before I start a project). While it is gorgeous (again enough to compensate so I want to make one for me) and it is amazingly soft and squishy, it took FOREVER to do because each row only adds a half-row to the height of the blanket. Good thing I started last December.

 

 

Next come Oscar and Carley, who we had on Nathaniel's side. Oscar got the 1 store-bought gift, as I had run out of time, and I figured he'd rather that I make something for his son than for him. So that's what I did. Oscar got chocolates, though I also gave him and Carley some jam, so that kinda made up for it. ;) Carley received 3 full-sized reusable bags, and 3 reusable produce bags. (I think she gave the best reaction out of anyone) It was awesome. One was from the yarn I'd used for a blanket for them, and one was from "plarn" , which is created from plastic grocery bags cut into strips. She loved them.

  

Tristan, their younger son, got this Mario blanket, which is probably one of my favorites. It turned out absolutely gorgeous and awesome, and the look on his face said that he did really like it. (The picture is on the post yesterday, of him grinning with Oscar behind him leaned over, explaining that I'd made it by hand).

  

Ethan's (their older son) was pretty awesome too. Basically the same as Tristan's, except that it's Yoda instead of Mario. (Thank you Captain Obvious) I think I have a "love-hate" relationship with granny squares. I love how quickly they work up, and how portable it makes the project, however, it takes forever to stitch them all together. Which is probably why I started doing the patterns that were full blankets, instead of grannies.

 

Okay, I suppose Oscar wasn't the only one with store-bought gifts, Jessica got some too. But I also made some gifts for Jessica. I made her this game bag. It has matching on one side, where she can pull out the shapes, and match them to the shapes on the front. Then on the other side of the bag (lower photo) is a blank board, and there are 5 circles and 5 squares, so once she is old enough, we can teach her to play tic-tac-toe. 

 

 

I also made her pajamas for Christmas Eve, though they turned out huge on her, at least as far as length goes (which is okay because she can grow into them) and the shirt's neckline is huge and seems to fall off her shoulders a lot of the time.

  

This was one of my favorites. It's a jump mat. For now, basically just a matching game, where she can match the numbers on the bean bags to the numbers on the mat, but then later she an also use it for other number-learning type of games. 

 

Last, but not least, I made this adorable circle-skirt for her. Such an easy pattern! I loved it. It, however, is a fair amount too big around her waist, but as you see, it is also fairly long. So, in other words, it will fit her for at least a few months, depending on when she hits her growth spurts. 

 

And the last person on my list (but very obviously not least) was my wonderful husband Nathaniel. He also received some purchased.  But here we have his pajama pants (which unfortunately ended up just the tiniest bit too small).

 

I also crocheted some slipper socks for him, but since they are as a gift, I couldn't measure it against his foot. That made it so they are a little difficult for him to put on, but at least they do fit.

 

This was the next largest/most labor-intensive gift besides my sister's. I made a queen-sized quilt for our bed for him. We've only had the 1 my mom made for us for our wedding, and as we've had only that 1 for the past 3 years, it was time to add another. This was the one I was most worried about finishing before Christmas, but miraculously, I somehow did, including the binding which required hand stitching.

 

And, while the quilt was the biggest, this was my favorite. It is a list of 99 things I thought of that I love about him, made into a flip-book. It's just always nice to have reminders like this. It was fun to go through them multiple times as I thought of them, and as I wrote them, and then made the pages. And it will be nice to have it for going through on those days when we're being a little ornery at each other. And I'm sure it is also wonderful for him to go through. 

So yeah. Those were my gifts that I gave. I think, next year, if I decide to do an entirely home-made Christmas, I need to decide this before October, and have some of the gifts done by about June. So I don't go quite so crazy.