Labors of Love

I love giving and receiving handmade gifts.  Those for me are always the most special because you know that  a lot of time, effort, thought, and most importantly love was put into them.  They can also be the most difficult gifts sometimes because of all the time, effort, thought, and often cost that goes into them (I almost always underestimate all of these things). Some of my favorite Christmas memories have been the times that I have made things for gifts.  I remember long hours spent before and after school as well as during class in high school and college in the wood shop working on Christmas gifts for my parents.  In I refinished my mom's old hope chest and in college I made a wall clock for my parents.  I could hardly wait for Christmas to give these gifts because I knew they would be appreciated and I was certain my parents would recognize the love that went into them. 

  I have also been the recipient of many wonderful handmade gifts: quilts, a photo album Ryan started and gave to me when we were engaged, paintings, pottery, etc. I've always been surprised at the time, thought, and effort these people have put into these gifts, hopefully I showed how at the time how much I appreciated it. I hope I can get better at giving these kind of gifts.

Here are a few handmade gifts from this Christmas:

This was my big Christmas project this year.  I decided to make our family a Nativity Advent Calendar and figured it would be just as easy to make two and give the other one to my sister and her family. I found the general idea online and then changed it to make it how I wanted it.  It of course took way longer than planned (I hoped to have it done just after Thanksgiving, but didn't finish it until half way through December).  It was a great learning experience in the realm of sewing, but over all I think it turned out alright.

My sister is really good at these kinds of gifts, she always makes the girls really cute things.  This year for Christmas she made them a fishing game.  It included two fishing poles made of a dowel, ribbon and a magnet on the end, and a number of fabric fish with big button eyes and metal washers sewn on by their mouths so you could catch them; best of all everything fits inside a bag that zips closed.  Very cute and simple and the girls LOVE it.  They played with it for over an hour Christmas morning, which was a welcome relief from the noisy toy Ryan and I got them :)  They love pretending the couch is their boat and the blanket is the water and they catch all the fish and then throw them back and do it again.  Lauren told me this morning that I should save up all my monies so that I can buy me a fishing pole.

Best for last: This year for Christmas Ryan's mom made us the Woolsey Family Coat of Arms (the British version). It is exactly like the one that is hanging in their house that Ryan's grandma made a number of years ago.  Ryan has always loved it and asked for that to be his "inheritance" when they died. The entire thing is hand stitched and it has been in the works since March, taking in total about 9 months to complete. Just remaking the pattern alone took about a month. All the thread had to be special ordered online and some of it took several months to get. Ryan's parents counted how many stitches were in a square inch and estimated that the whole thing is composed of around 45,000 stitches! We actually knew that this is what we were getting for Christmas and surveyed our apartment for the perfect place to hang it.  We hung it up almost immediately after opening it.  We LOVE it and appreciate all the months and countless hours spent on it.