Handmade Christmas Gifts for 2009

I've been making Christmas presents this year.  It's been so much fun.  Gifts made by hand are my favorite kind of gifts to give and to receive. 

For a close group of girlfriends I made this nail kit case:

This is the version I made for a few of the guys in my family:

This is how they look when they're opened:

The pattern was free on-line at http://www.dhbuscher.com/

For some of the gals in my family plus another group of close girlfriends, I made these bracelets:

 

One of my girlfriends, Kim, taught me how to made these adorable bracelets - she's so nice.  The pattern is called spiral rope.  I've also seen this pattern free on the internet if you'd like to search for it.

My neighbor, Chris, also generously gave me a lesson on how to make earrings.  I tried a few pair to give along with some of the beaded bracelets.

I've also been working on a tote bag crocheted from recycled plastic grocery bags.  It's kind of hard on the arm and hand muscles to crochet with the plastic stips so it's taken me quite awhile to finish.  Plus I decided to make mine fairly large so it's taken some endurance and lots of breaks to get it done.  Haven't decided for sure if I'll give it as a gift or keep it - it didn't turn out quite as cute as I'd imagined it would.  Here are a couple of pictures - one shot has a few grocery items in it to show the size scale.

It's kind of deep, isn't it.  Lots more groceries can fit into this handy bag.  My friend, Kim, showed me how to make this tote bag at a class she taught at our local quilting guild meeting.  She brought a couple of handouts of free instructions from the internet - one of them is Marlo's Crochet Corner.