Christmas Reveal #1

I’m sure you’re dying to see what I was working on so feverishly for Christmas gifts. There are many, so I’m going to do the reveal in a few posts that are logically (to me, anyway) grouped.

The most exciting presents were made for Amanda & Ryan, who are expecting their first child next summer. I’ll be a grandma of an actual human (I only have grand-dogs at this point) in a short 7 months! I know that my spring & summer are usually quite busy with weaving, plus I wanted to get a baby-related Christmas gift in. After knitting all those (25) mug cozies, I was in a knitting mood, so decided to knit a baby blanket with a lovely mint-green color baby yarn I’ve had for years. (Why have I had acrylic baby yarn hanging around for years? Before I started my business, I used to make baby blankets for people I worked with — lots of young women. I enjoyed the creative outlet. So I picked up yarn on sale. Then I changed jobs, started a business, and time ran out.)

So here’s the blanket.
I must say, as I was knitting this blanket, I was AMAZED at how much longer it takes to knit than to weave! I hadn’t knit in a long enough time that I’d really forgotten the time commitment. It took me at least 5 times longer to knit that blanket than it would have taken to weave one of a similar size. Granted they’re very different processes that produce very different results, and knitting was what I wanted to do then, so it was all good, just quite surprising.

As you can probably now guess, the little things I figured I could whip out on Christmas eve were booties. I started with a little crocheted one. Much cuter with the buttons on than without. Crocheted the first one Christmas eve, made the second Christmas morning.

Since the first one wasn’t so cute sans button, I decided to try a knitted one.
Cute, but would only fit Baby Huey. And took a lot of time. So I decided I’d only make 1 of these–Amanda & Ryan can simply appreciate it for a while and toss it, or can use it for a Baby’s first Christmas stocking next year.

While I was knitting the green blanket, I figured that since I have 7 months before Baby will be born, I can weave a nice blanket, too. Then I said, “Hey, you should go get that quilt out that your sister made for Amanda when she was a baby.” When I did, I was really surprised by what else was stored with that quilt — there were 2 receiving blankets, 2 blankets I’d crocheted, one my other sister knit, and one my mother-in-law crocheted. Wow, that’s a lot of blankets! I washed them all and hung them on the line for a few days to really air out. The MIL crocheted blanket is fraying in several places, and the sister knit blanket quite stained, so neither will go to Amanda. Here are the others on the line.

And a few close ups.

Yes, I sure do see all the stains on that animal blanket. I just had to bring it to Amanda, and let her toss it. It’s a blanket I crocheted and one that she used in pre-school as her nap blanket. I thought she might want to see it before it hit the trash bin.

In my next post, I’ll show you all the woven Christmas gifts.

Your turn: did you make or receive handmade gifts?