Some Christmas crafting

Here are a few of the crafts I’ve been doing for Christmas gifts. I didn’t want to show these here earlier because some of the recipients' mothers read my blog. But now it can be told!

In 2006 I crocheted some decorative stockings for the 5 grandchildren we had then. This year we added 2 more, so more stockings had to follow!


A few years ago I embroidered flour-sack dish towels for my daughters and daughter-in-law. I got thinking this year about my little granddaughter who has a play kitchen and how she might like some mini dish towels. I then decided that there were 2 grandsons who like to help in the kitchen and would enjoy these too. So I’m in the midst of making one for each of the three kids and also came across some partial pieces of homespun-type dish toweling that I turned into mini towels as well. These are the ones for little Darrin, out in Nevada.


(I must add a note of explanation about the "dishes are unfair" one. I have no idea where this came from. It was stamped on a piece of vintage dish towel fabric and someone had started embroidering it — in black, of all colors! I either inherited this from somewhere or it came from a thrift shop or something. I thought about what could be done with it and decided to finish it in black (it was about half done already) and then add in some touches of color. Once it was washed, hemmed and pressed I was quite pleased with the result!)

Here’s a winter pillowcase I made for Darrin, too.

The little hats in this photo are intended to be ornaments. After the photo was taken, I added gold cords to hang them with and glued a little snowflake to the dark red one and a little tree to the one in variegated Christmas colors. These went along in the package to NV for him and Emily. These little hats were so easy to make -- just a small section (the larger hat used a 3/4" piece and the smaller hat a 1/2" piece) of a cardboard tube with 12" lengths of yarn tied around it. When the tube is covered with yarn, one pulls all of the yarn tails through the tube and ties them off to form the pompom for the hat. I plan to make more of these as I thought they were very cute. I've had the instructions for years but this is the first time I've tried making any of the hats.

Here are two more pillowcases which I made for my older granddaughters. These are a princessy pink with stars and pink glitter.

I also made some very simple fleece scarves for the two girls. I was astounded to find how well these coordinated with their winter jackets.

And here is an embellished long-sleeved t-shirt which I made for one of them. Walmart had the plain shirts for only $4.50. I sewed some strung pearls around the neck and added a ribbon rose.

There will be more crafts to share in time, as we still have one family to open gifts with. I will share more later. I hope others had as much fun crafting this year as I did!