Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Merry Craft-mas

In keeping with my belated christmas posts, I have another for you (and at least two more on the way).

In this one, I get crafty.

In addition to pango jam, Andy and I gave a few handmade stuffed toys as presents. I have recently rekindled my love of crochet, and decided to enter the surprisingly prolific world of amigurumi -- Japanese stuffed toys.

For my nephews in the US, I made two little monster dolls, from this pattern. Each took about a day to make.

Apparently they loved them, or at least the younger of the two did. Upon opening their presents, the 18-month old grabbed both his and his brother's monsters.

Another crochet gift was quickly thrown together for Andy's brother, who recently spent a year living on Macquarie Island -- an sub-Antarctic island full of penguins, seals, and other wildlife. I looked up a few penguin patterns, messed one up and improvised it until I got a semi-cute (though lopsided) result. This one only took a few hours, including several stuff-ups!

To go with everyone's pango jam, I crocheted some pineapple fridge magnets, which took about 10 minutes each.

And for our kitty friends, I made some catnip toys, which took 20 minutes max.

I'm already brainstorming about the handmade gifts to give next year!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

you're so talented, lucky nephews you have! i consider myself lucky if i can knit a scarf that isn't lopsided and wonky looking, i can't imagine crocheting dolls!

Debra said...

You did good!
Debra @ Vegan Family Style

steph said...

These are all great!

DJ said...

I love the photo of your nephew holding those little monsters triumphantly!! Soooo adorable! Those gifts look really cute - I would have been pleased to receive any one of them!

Amy said...

So adorable! I did handmade gifts (but it was in the cookie dept - that I forgot to photograph!)... :)