Uncategorized

Christmas Gifting

If you’re a maker then you are probably familiar with making gifts. Birthday gifts are generally not too bad as you’ve only go the one but Christmas is in a league of it’s own. No matter when you start there’s always that last minute panic to get at least one of them finished and some (could just be me) get rolled over into next year. I find the best way to deal with this is to not tell people what you’re making and then nobody know’s that the jumper they got this Christmas was actually meant to be finihsed two years ago.

The Late One

This year I was only a wee bitty bit late with one! ONE! Smallest child’s jumper gave me a headache and once I’d finished it had to have major surgery (yoke seperated from main body/sleeves and reknit) so wasn’t ready to be gifted until mid last week. Thankfully, he is a very patient little munchkin and did me the honor of squealing when I gave it to him.

Naturally, his arms have now grown so I need to unpick the cuff and knit another inch! I’ve learnt many things from this knit, the main one being, don’t knit striped raglan sleeves in the round unless the body is striped too. It had so many ends I honestly never thought I’d finish. I am also now less afraid of hacking my knitting in half if it’s all gone wrong.

The Almost Perfect One

Biggest Small’s was far easier and only required a reknit of the neckline as the ribbed neck looked strange. I unpicked down to the end of the rib and then just cast off. If I was going to do it again I would choose a different increase method. The yoke was based off a Drops pattern and I find the increase jarring. Thankfully though, not jarring enough to reknit it. Yet.

When the weather can’t make up its mind, take all the things.

The Fits First Time One

I made my Mum a new bobble hat. It fits perfectly! She also loves it, which is a bonus. The pattern is by Wanded Knits on instagram. I test knit the pattern for her last year by making one for Smallest. A picture can be seen at the bottom of my last post, here.

The One I finished in the Garden and The One I didn’t Get a Picture Of

As I was sat in my shed in October, before my lungs had a strop, I realised I had a Queen size quilt batting still in it’s packet. I was going to use it to make two single quilts, one each for the children, two years ago. As this clearly wasn’t going to happen any time soon and my grandmother had given me a bundle of fat quarters she’d bought and not done anythign with, I decided to make my grandparents a quilt each for the conservatory and then the caravan later in the year.

After the lung strop I was running out of time to make things so decided to use the fat quarters as they were to make a large patch quilt. I backed it with a yellow patterned sheet I’d thrifted from a charity shop years ago and bound it in navy bias binding. I’m a lazy quilter when it comes to binding them and have found bias binding to be pefect. I like to hand stitch the binding down on the back of the quilt and completed my Nan’s whilst sat in the my Mum’s garden the weekend before Christmas.

Upon checking my fabroc stash I had large strips of blue checked fabric which I used to make my Grandfather’s, backed it with a dark grey sheet and bound it with the same navy bias binding. I completely forgot to take a picture of it before I wrapped it though.

They both absolutely love them, which is always nice feedback.

Do you handmake gifts for people? how did your gift making go this year?

Kx

2 thoughts on “Christmas Gifting

  1. Everything looks fantastic! I do not envy your ends on ‘the late one’! OMG. I am currently knitting the Shawlography and I am facing a good hour of working in ends.

  2. Oh I can relate to this! I managed to get most of my projects done in time but there’s one that didn’t work out as I wanted so had to be restarted – I just need to cast off and do the finishing touches!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.