giving: made at home

In a mad rush at the last possible minute, I managed to get quite a few things ready to give once again this year. I always plan to do it sooner, and I always fail to do so. But I think I thrive on the pressure, and often do my best work when there is a deadline looming!



For our nephew who is a big UGA fan, we purchased a nice hoodie (one of the few exceptions to my Buy Handmade Pledge) to go with these handmade boxers. They turned out great! And what teenager doesn't want his Aunt to make him underwear?! We'll see if these end up at the bottom of a very dark drawer anytime soon.





For Jason's dad, a new clock with pictures of the kids at every hour. I made this up on my computer and had it printed at Kinko's, then popped it into an inexpensive clock. A very quick and easy gift that looks great!



For Stella, I also recreated one of my favorite skirts from her wardrobe. The original is a thrift shop find and I've been meaning to copy it for some time now. It was very easy once I sat down to it, and made a very easy one evening project (even if that evening did happen to be Christmas Eve...) The fabric is a vintage sheet also picked up at a thrift shop!



For our niece Cali, a hooded towel with her name on it. This is one gift all but the oldest of our nieces and nephews have gotten from me, and they just keep getting more and more detailed. I have a lot of fun doing the embellishments, and I have gotten great reviews after years and years of use out of these. A very simple project that can be as basic or as fancy as you want- the largest cost here is finding decent towels in the colors you want.







And then there were the sock monkeys. A new project for me this year, I made one for each of the girls as well as one of our nephews. Lyle has one coming, but it is one of the projects that failed to meet that deadline. His will see a few improvements over the first few, now that I have seen them in action (and had to repair several split seams!) This is something I can see myself making many more of in the future. A fun and fast project, with very little expense beyond a cool pair of socks.















Among the items forgotten when it came to capturing them with photography, were a knitted dishcloth for Jason's mom and the shopping totes for my dad. Oh- and a sample of knitting for a will-be scarf for my sister, which will be in the works throughout the coming months.

And lastly, another gift still in the works, a scarf for Daisy. It is nearly finished- hopefully within the weekend it will be complete. I'll post about it when it's done.