Mortem's Tricks or Treats: Santa Came Early

When speaking of material gifts, there are 3 things that you're guaranteed never to go wrong with:

1. Gifts made from your own two hands
2. Gifts made for their hands... aka, hobby supplies.
3. Gift card to their favorite, or most frequented place of shopping-- that can even be the grocery store (hell, I would love it if someone foot my grocery bill, heh)

And the second isn't necessarily things like craft supply, it can be anything from a multi-socket car adapter for that tech gadget savvy person, maybe a brush holder either for the painter or make up aficionado in your life... things you know they'll likely use because it targets what and where they love to spend their time.

From the above, you'd almost assume I was a good gift giver... and sadly, you'd be mistaken. I talk a big game when it comes to finding perfect gifts; in most cases, I have just purchased gift cards. Not that they weren't appreciated, but I really wanted this year to be really special, and I know when I receive something that someone else has personally made me, it elates my little heart straight into the cosmos.

It seems only fair to reciprocate that feeling.

This year I handmade every gift I gave... granted, half of them were of one specific type.

For my husband, and father-in-law... I made

Cord Holders

For my ASU grad

The one in the photos was made especially for my husband; my father-in-law's is plain black, but I painted a four leaf clover to one side. My husband is crazy about the university he graduated from... and I literally mean crazy. There will be no talk of U of A or even Tuscon in this house, lest you bring out some serious demons.

Inside

For my sister-in-law I had intended on knitting her a bookmark (scarf), but well... something went wrong...

Gryffindor "Tapestry"

It grew and grew and turned into a tapestry...

I didn't finish the top checker pattern, because it would've been too long to hang and too short to wear, haha.

I used this pattern, which utilizes the double-knitting technique I briefly mentioned in a previous post. It is my first and mostly successful attempt at this method of knitting; it uses two colors and reverses on each side, as shown. It can be confusing at times, but once you get the hang of when to switch colors to create the mirrored contrast, it's fun! You can see near the bottom that I kind of botched the switching of colors, and didn't actually notice till I was finished... bummer.

And finally, for my brother-in-law, I painted him:

A Graphic Novel-Inspired Elephant

He adores elephants, but I thought it wasn't enough to just paint him a still life... it needed edge. So I took some graphic inspiration from Frank Miller... I like his work, but I'm not overly fond of the man, is that weird? Eheh...

 I ran out of time and couldn't quite make something elaborate for my mother-in-law, which I felt utterly crappy about. I knit her up a gradient colored cellphone/camera strap with acrylic pearls sewn into it, and told her it's a place-holder IOU. She liked the cord holders I made for the men, so we agreed that's what I'll make for her.

Making gifts and giving them is a fantastic feeling (even though most of them were cord holders)! I'm already conjuring ideas for next gift-giving events, heh.

What do you have in mind to give to your loved ones?