Just enjoying a nice cup of tea from Mrs Magpie’s Mug…
… a very thoughtful birthday present from Paul’s Aunt!
Tag: gifts
Milly’s Monkey Hat
Now that we’re into the New Year, I think it’s safe to reveal some of the things I made as Christmas gifts.
I don’t have photos of all the knitting because I wrapped and posted it as soon as it was finished. But I made a pair of socks and a pair of wristbands and a cowl and a pair of fingerless gloves. And a hat and mittens.
I do have a picture of Milly’s Monkey Hat and Matching Mittens:
The pattern was one of Ann Budd’s basic hats, and I made up the ears as I was going along. The mittens are from a Ravelry pattern by Anke Klempner, designed for newborns. The pattern calls for 3.5mm needles, so I used 4mm to make the mittens slightly larger. I managed to get the hat and mittens out of one 50g ball of Sirdar Snuggly, and I used the leftovers to make the mitten string. The cream parts on the monkey’s face and ears are made from fleece, blanket stitched into place, and the eyes, nose and mouth are simply embroidered on.
I made the string for the mittens on my knitting nancy, and I think it’s probably long enough to last Milly until she’s at least eight. I was a bit worried that the hat would be too small, but it seems to be okay:
The ears do make it ridiculously easy for Milly to grab the hat and chuck it across the room, but apparently that happens to all hats at the moment – and she was far more interested in the crinkly wrapping paper anyway!
Beth and Katy
Hopefully this parcel has arrived at its destination by now – I don’t want to spoil a surprise!
These little dolls are for Paul’s cousin and her husband, who are now the proud parents of identical twin girls. Catherine and Elizabeth are thankfully known as Katy and Beth for short – otherwise I’d have had a lot more embroidery to do!
Letters
Apparently spring is Birthday Season around here, because I suddenly discovered that I needed to send out a whole bunch of birthday gifts at the same time. A few of us have been enjoying writing actual physical letters to one another recently, so I decided to put together some letter sets.
They’re bigger than they look – what you can see in the picture is five A4 envelopes. Inside each one is a set of ten sheets of A4 Conqueror writing paper in a lovely deep creamy colour, with five matching DL envelopes. I also put in a few little “thank you” cards, a gel pen, a mini propelling pencil, and a couple of Airmail stickers.
The outer envelopes looked a bit plain, so I decided that a spot of hand lettering was the order of the day. You can’t really tell from this photo but they’re painted with metallic acrylics, and then outlined with a very fine marker.
I really enjoyed painting these – I spent a very pleasant afternoon watching endless Eddie Izzard DVDs as I wielded my very tiny paintbrush.