Homemade gifts that I got

Christmas 2014
Christmas gifts were awesome this year as I got several homemade gifts. It is awesome to get homemade gifts as I give homemade gifts that I made!

My Granddaughter who you can see on a post below, made me a lap quilt! This was her first quilt and the first time she used a sewing machine.
The quilt which is a little smaller than crib size was two pieces of fleece tied with the strips that were cut on the edges.
The one side has an added quilted top which was mostly hand sewn. She used the sewing machine to sew the edges of it to the top fleece piece before tying the two fleece pieces.  I think she did an awesome job.

A surprise addition was the little heart in the center. It was from a piece of the quilt I made for her when she was first born 19 years ago!
All the cloth pieces are a butterfly pattern because she knows I love butterflies! I love the way she added the words I hear you in ribbons! She is very artistic!

Gingerbread clay ornaments

So I had asked her to help me make Gingerbread clay ornaments as a surprise for my daughter.

She and her boyfriend made these:

The bell with the mouth was painted by my Granddaughters boyfriend. He is quite a good artist as well.  I painted that candy cane, the white star and the Holly leaf on the end. 

I found a great easy recipe for the clay and they mixed up the ingredients, rolled out the clay and used the cookie cutters we both bought. They baked them and when my daughter went out several times they got the paints out and the three of us painted each ornament.  I must say their artwork is very superior!

Here is the formula for the clay I found at Pinterest.

Gingerbread Clay Ornaments

• 4 cups of white flour
• 1 cup table salt
• 1/4 cup ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons of ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons of ground cloves
• 1 1/2 cups of warm water

Mix dough, you can put less spices according to your desires. Roll out the dough and cut shapes with cookie cutters.  If you want a hole to add a string for hanging use a small tube like a straw to make a hole.  Bake 200 degrees for one hour. The ornaments will shrink to half the size.  Dry and decorate any way you want. The kids used acrylics. I used some glitter on a few of mine. After they are dry you can coat them with Mod Podge. We made our own with half school glue and water mixed.

Knitted Potato chip scarves

My oldest daughter knits and she and my other daughter picked out two kinds of the special "potato chip yarn."  

Here are the two knitted scarves:

                       A Turquoise color yarn from WalMart

 

A multi colored with chenille edging

The scarf yarn brand is Yarn Bee.  The type is Velvet Chrysalis.  She got it from Hobby Lobby. She says that the photo online looks lighter for the chenille than it looks without the bright lights. It normally looks darker in normal light indoors. 

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/blue-morpho-chrysalis-velvet-yarn-654442/

Photo with flash to show colors

I see that different people call it different things. Besides potato chip scarf they call it ruffle, ribbon and infinity scarves.

Whatever you want to call it, I love it. I love the way it looks when you have it hanging down. It is so soft!

Crochet or finger woven instructions:

Here is a great video that has step by step instructions oh how to use this kind of yarn that is like a mesh.  It is not so difficult that a child can do it especially the three finger method shown at the end of the video. This is also a good project for visually impaired persons like myself to use the last three finger method.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tBZ-dNqOA0

Knitting instructions step by step photos and words:

Here is a great tutorial on how to knit with this type of yarn to make a ruffle scarf. 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Adorable-Ruffle-Scarf-Instructions-Patons-Pirouet/?ALLSTEPS