Christmas Gifts 2011

My Christmas crafting for 2011 went pretty smoothly. Usually, I'm feeling very under the gun leading up to Christmas Eve but this year I figured out what I wanted to make early and actually got the gifts done at least a week in advance. I wish I could do that every year!

For the girls, I made each of them a pair of fingerless gloves, or gauntlets, out of recycled sweaters and fleece. You can see the Instructables article here. They required a bit of machine sewing and some hand sewing to complete. Here's a tip: when you go to the fabric store around Christmas to buy material, get a number for the cutting table line as soon as you walk in the store. Otherwise, you'll have to wait a VERY long time to get your material cut.

Sarah has always wanted a way to dry washed plastic ziploc bags, so that's what I made her this year. Drilling angled holes with the correct orientation and at the same level around a curved dowel proved to be quite difficult. I eventually settled on this jig. (Some might call it a jury-rig, but it worked.)

I bought the dowel arms pre-cut and I only used part of a 1" dowel for the trunk. However, I needed the rest of the 1" dowel to make sure my jig would work. The base was pre-cut, too, from the craft section at our local Joanne's. I finished it with some urethane I had lying around.

As usual, I really enjoyed the planning and making of these gifts. We exchange our handmade gifts on Christmas eve so that we can really focus on just these gifts. It's always a very special event that we all really enjoy. I'm already thinking about gifts for next year.
Merry Christmas!