This year, we gave most family members the same gifts and found it much less stressful than it would have been to make individual gifts at the moment. I usually like making individual things, but thesis and job stress this year just didn’t allow that.
Our presents were well received, which is always satisfying when you’ve made them! We made rice heat packs with removable covers and criss-cross coasters with very cute tree fabric. What’s not pictured here, is a batch of biscotti each.
The pie is what we literally brought to the table on the 23rd and the 25th. My partner usually makes the pastry and I make the filling- I think it was our best pie yet!
The gift tags are made from last year’s cards- I cut them up the week before Christmas. The process of choosing what part of the card to feature and creating a stack of tags is such a simple process but it always seems to get me into the festive mood!
I finished the pair of socks I was making! They’re not perfect by any degree- one is actually a few rows shorter than the other- because I must have manipulated the fabric differently when measuring. The tutorial I used was Silver’s sock class and it is amazingly clear and actually empowering for timid knitters. They’re ankle socks since the deal I had with my partner was that our gifts had to be made with the materials already in our home (and there was only one ball of sock yarn).
The gifts I got in return were a crocheted hat with fleece lining (you can see it on the right of the picture) which will be great to block the wind from my ears and a 2009 calendar with photo collages of our adventures over the last year. We both did very well keeping to the “materials on hand” rules and it stretched our creativity and skill level as well!
Riotflower's Realm 