Christmas Round Up

Christmas has passed, we've ripped open our presents, eaten too much, perhaps had a few too many rum balls and fallen asleep on the couch.  Ah, but now I can finally show you some of the Christmas gifts that I crafted this year!

Jars of seasoning mix - possibly the easiest gifts in the world to make, but always well appreciated!  It's simply a mix of your favourite herbs - mine included rock salt, colourful peppercorns, oregano,  rosemary and fennel seeds.  Just mix it all together, spoon into jars and give them cute fabric tops to make them look festive.  Easy!

Hypotrochoid hankies.  These were a gift for a friend of mine who likes sciencey things but also crafty things.  I used my trusty hypotrochoid set to draw the shapes (I knew there was a reason that I had to buy one as an adult, even though a voice inside was telling me that they're for kids) then embroidered them onto soft cotton linen.

Ooh... smokey barbeque sauce.  This is one of my favourites.  It really does turn out smokey and yummy, and you know the main ingredient used for smoking?  Tea. Yep, good old tea.  If you would like to make some smokey barbeque sauce of your own (I highly recommend it!) I wrote up the full recipe and instructions here.  I also made plum and nectarine jam, but sadly forgot to take photos!

Some boxer shorts for boyfriend.  I used an old pair of boxer shorts as a pattern, and was impressed with how well they came together.  Fairly simple too, taking about an hour to whip up.  I used some fair-trade, organic cotton that I bought online.

And I crocheted some face washers from fair trade, organic cotton yarn (I thought I had taken full photos, but can't seem to find them now).  After looking at a few patterns online I decided to ad-lib a bit and just make up my own.  I ended up doing a row of double crochet then a row of three double crochet in one stitch, chain and skip the next stitch.  It worked out really well!



And me?  Well I was truly spoilt this year, receiving some fantastic gifts that I had really wanted.  Some beautiful books, new running shoes and something that I will blog about in the coming weeks - a yoghurt making set-up!  Awesome!  Just another step towards cutting down on the amount of packaging and food additives in my life.  My yoghurt requires just two ingredients - milk and yoghurt culture.  I promise to show you very soon.

In the meantime, enjoy your New Year's Eve celebrations and I will be back in 2012 with many more exciting stitchy stories!