Introducing... The Octonauts!

These little buggers were a commission from a gal I work with for her little boy.  For those of you who don't know, the Octonauts are a BBC show, made up of a team of deep sea diving rescue animals.  (From as near as I can gather)  Either way, they're totally adorable!  I can't take credit for the patterns for them, as they were obtained from Etsy.

Here they are in their own little photo shoot before they left my house to hers!

Aren't they just adorable????

Very special gloves for a very special lady

 

If you can't tell, I'm all about gifts of the homemade variety.  I always try to make something special or unique that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else and usually make it something that is unique to my gift receiver.  This year, I knit my very first pair of gloves.  I made them for my grandmother in-law who is one of the most wonderful women that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, let alone being able to call family.  Many years ago, she worked for a factory.  One day, she had the misfortune of the machine clamping down on her hand and cutting off the fingers of her right hand.  They went straight to the hospital, with her fingers, but were unable to reattach them.  Ever since, she has lived, and done quite well with just one good hand.  (She cross-stitches, and she's amazing at it- a true inspiration)  

On one of my visits to my husbands' hometown, I was testing out a knitting pattern, trying to see if I could get the hang of it.  I finished off one fingerless mitt (wasn't really happy with it, and to this day, this particular mitt is still sitting in the bottom of my "to-finish" stack).  Well she tried it on, and made an offhand comment that she hadn't ever had a properly made pair of gloves.  She couldn't wear gloves because they didn't fit her bad hand, and fingerless mitts left her cold.  

I took it upon myself to try and find a pretty pattern, and to work making a pair of gloves that would serve her needs.  I made the left hand just as the pattern described, which was hard enough itself, as this was the first time that I had ever made fingers.  It took weeks of putting it down, picking it up, getting frustrated, getting over it and putting it back down again before I was finally done.  

Then, I left it alone for about week, wondering if I would ever be finished with them.  Then in a sudden burst of inspiration, I started and finished the second glove, which turned out to be much easier because instead of fingers, all I had to do was keep knitting and then close off as if for a mitten.  It worked great. 

Overall, not my finest work, the fingers were a wee bit funky, and the cuffs did this weird thing, probably because I didn't do a garter stitch for long enough, but the reaction was all worth it.  She laughed and hugged me and tried them on many times for everyone to see.  It is this sort of gifting that makes all of my crazy labor over the year worth while.

Why don't you try finding one truly unique thing you can make for someone this year?  You might be surprised at how it makes you feel!

My Sister In Laws House Rules plus Canvas Transfer

 

Sometimes, when I get an Idea in my head, I can be a real idiot about it.  I had planned on making my sister in-law something crocheted, but bombed at my first attempt and then just couldn't think of anything better to make.  Well, one day, like an idiot, I'm going through pinterest (perhaps someday I'll talk about why pinterest is oh so very dangerous to my productivity levels) and see these great house rules.  Then, I see a canvas transfer and I'm like "Wheeee!  I'll put them together and it will look AWESOME! Plus, it will be way easier than crocheting something!" 

*disclaimer: when you can crochet a hat in an hour, attempting any new project such as this definitely should not be classified as "easier."*

Durrr.  I spent probably a total of 10-15 hours working on this blasted thing, partially because I couldn't find the rub-off  letters that I wanted (which in hindsight, should have looked harder for) and ended up doing stencils on the whole thing.  By the time I had all the white stenciled, I had smears and splotches and had to go back with the black.  

Let me state, photo transfers are awesome.  They're fun, they're cool and I guarantee that I'll be doing a lot more of them in the future.  I did two when I first made them, "Just In Case" and boy was I glad I did.  The first one I glued down onto the black and it looked terrible.  Their faces pretty much disappeared and I ended up painting white over it, and putting down the second transfer. 

They got their final coat spray the night before we left to go back to visit them, and wrapped sometime around 4 am....

My Mother in Law's Lapghan

 

This was the first Christmas present I started last year and also the first one that was done.  I started it at my mother in law's house over our christmas vacation because her house can get very cold in the winter.  She asked me what I was making and I said, "A blanket for your cold house," we laughed and I don't think she thought of it again.  I'm sure she remembered when she opened up the box!

This one seemed to take me much longer than things usually do, but I think I just couldn't work on it for very long.  I tend to like variety, but this one is pretty much the same pattern all the way around, so it worked up pretty easily, but very tediously for me.

My Mothers Decorative Afghan

 

When I set out to make my mother's gift this year, I wanted to make it something different.  She knows how to crochet and she's made herself afghans in the past, so I wanted it to be something that she would never make for herself.  I found a great pattern on Lion Brand Yarn's website, and modified the colors and removed some features to make this decorative afghan for her.   It is called the removed the tassels that hung from the sides and attached things a little differently than they had. 

I still feel that the afghan is missing something, if I were keeping it, I would probably add a border all around the outer edge, and I offered to do this for my mother if she wanted me to.  I told her to take it for a test drive and if she wanted me to modify it in any way I could.  

It was a challenging pattern, but visually striking I think!  (And my mother loved it, btw)