Tuesday 15 December 2009

Christmas Making - Round up

I've not done much Christmas Making recently, mainly because I've reached a stumbling block - what on earth do you make for men?! Women and girls are so easy to hand make for. But boys.... and there are so few patterns out there for them. A quick search of Etsy for the words 'man' and 'pattern' brought up loads of felt gingerbread man ornament patterns, but very little else.

I have seen some projects that would be suitable for little boys, but unfortunately the blokes I buy for are all over 20. Hmmmmm. So I figured the next best thing would be to buy handmade. Not as thrifty, but at least it's getting into the spirit of Christmas Making.

My purchases so far:


This lovely bird made from London clay, by D H Painter. She still has some for sale in her Folksy shop, but they're going like hot cakes, so if you want one get it now! It's for my brother, who lives in London and a) likes stylish things b) will love the idea that there was once a warm tropical sea that covered London and left behind a load of clay.

I've also bought two pairs of these:


Both my brother and mr pickledweasel love cufflinks, and were legoheads in their youth, so they're perfect. I also bought a little lego gift box to put them in. It came flat pack and I had to build it, which was fun :)

I have found one project I can do - I'm about to start knitting this beanie for mr pickledweasel, I'm just waiting for my circular needles to arrive from eBay. The wool I've bought is a really dark slate grey with little flecks of lighter grey in it, and should look great. If I don't manage to arse it all up at the end when I need to transfer to double pointed needles. And that's all I'm doing for chaps, which is a bit pants really. Anyone have any suitably macho crafty gift ideas they'd like to recommend?

2 comments:

  1. Socks and hats for boys, pretty much :)

    Though I did make some great scraves for my dad and Ricky's Dad a year or two ago - get two balls of Noro Kureyon, cast on some stitches on 5mm needles(20? 28? I dunno,how wide do you want your scarf?) and knit in K1P1 rib, switching to the other yarn ball after every 2 rows (so you get alternating stripes of the different colours that change as you go). Really effective, super-easy and looks great.And if you choose a manly colourway it's a great man-gift.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know, I can't find a guy around who will wear cufflinks, even though I think there are so many cool ones out there.

    Maybe a knitted sleeve for their iPhone or eReader or something else portable. For winter, I think knitted cozies would be nice, even for big tough men!

    ReplyDelete