It’s a cozy cozy christmas.  I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it turns out my christmas gifts have a theme this year. I guess we all have too much stuff, so now we need stuff to put our stuff in.

Crayon cozies:

A knitting needle cozy:

and a tissue cozy  (that is going to my nana who is 104!)

All the patterns were from online tutorials (this christmas season I am thankful for the internet). They can be found here, here, and here respectively.  I can see the end of my christmas list now and I am very excited.  I really didn’t know what I was getting into with the whole handmade pledge thing.  Now that I think about it I haven’t bought anything–except for some thread and notions and a couple “just in case I forgot someone gift.”  But somehow the money still gets spent: pounds and pounds of butter for cookies, wrapping paper, tape, more tape, shipping.  It was a lot of time spent sewing, which I couldn’t have done without a very supportive husband to watch the babies (and vacuum!), but I am pretty satisfied with myself.  Let’s just hope the recipients like them too.

I thought I’d show off some of the gifts I’ve received, because all the gifts I’m making are still in pieces (or shipped! yay!).   The tea cozy isn’t really a gift, unless you count the ones you give to yourself.   I never thought I would be a tea person, much less a tea cozy person, but after my second child I just stopped drinking coffee.  “COFFEE!” used to be the very first thought I had when I woke up in the morning, but my son was very sensitive to caffeine and with two kids I had to be able to nap at a moments notice, so I started drinking tea (fascinating stuff, Meg, do go on).  It is custom made (a couture cozy!) from this shop and it fits my funny tea pot perfectly.  The little knit thing next to it is a dishcloth.  Knit up by my mother, just because I said I liked hers. Thanks, Mom.  I can barely knit my way out of a paper bag, so it’s nice to finally have some beautiful knit goods around the house.

My oldest friend sent me an amazing christmas package yesterday full of fabric scraps, vintage buttons and trim, and the feminine encyclopedia!  Actually, l’encyclopedie feminine des ouvrages! I took a couple years of French in college, but translating Baudelaire and translating crochet patterns don’t have much in common.  Luckily the diagrams are explanation enough and the ideas are pretty fantastic.  I do love me a good 70s craft book.

Did you open any of your christmas presents yet?

This is a little seahorse ornament I made for a friend of mine. We watched a couple DVDs from the BBC production Planet Earth, which if you haven’t seen you better pretty soon. There are five discs and all of them are amazing–especially the caves, go rent the one about caves right now. This pygmy seahorse is from the shallow sea episode. There were two of these unbelievably small, red, polka dotted sea horses battling it out for a woman or territory (it’s always one of the two). It might have been the greatest battle of their lives, but to us it looked like they were bouncing off each other. Doink! Doink! Their polka dots didn’t make it any easier to take them seriously. I embroidered some random french knots all over and then did a sad blanket stitch around the whole thing. And there you have the smallest seahorse in the world ready to duke it out.

My holiday traditions exchange is all wrapped up and ready to go.  I’d love to show you what’s in all those packages, but you’ll have to wait until my partner gets it.   Meanwhile you’ll have to look at the fabulous vintage wrapping paper I used.  Isn’t it fabulous?  There are only scraps left, but I cut some of the pictures out and glued them on white cardstock. And there you go: all my christmas cards made.  Now I just have to write them, address them, wrangle my children and take a picture of them, and get them to the post office.  Truth be told, they will probably end up being new years cards, because I’m slowly loosing steam.  Back to the wrapping paper.  I got this roll and two others at St. Vinny’s last year: one is printed with carriages and the other cute angels.  The angels are just a little too cute for me, so I’d thought I’d pass it on.  I don’t know how vintage it is, but the paper is sturdy and new.  If you like it, leave a comment and I’ll send it tomorrow when I go to the post office.

see my flickr site for bigger pics

I am halfway through this handmade holiday thing–making everyone’s gift is a lot of work.  Thankfully I have a fantastic husband who lets me hide in my studio and sew for hours.  I even got myself to the post office Monday morning before it opened (there was already a line!) and a bunch of presents are on their way! The apron above is from Denyse Schmidt’s book and has an oven mitt to match. I made a few of these set for a few sets of people–aprons for the girls and oven mitts for the boys.  I think an oven mitt makes a fine man gift. I only have a few boys on my christmas list, but I have some crafty man gifts up my sleeve, which really I should be making now that I think about it…