Christmas Presents for the Kids

As always there were a few handmade Christmas presents for the kids in addition to their ornaments.  First up was another teddy bear from Amigurumi Two.  This time I made the bunny and I think she turned our really sweet.  The Koala was a big hit at Alex's birthday so my sister requested another one (so they wouldn't take it from each other).  I love being able to use stash yarn, and the bunny is just as soft as the koala was.  She was well-liked by the kids on Christmas, and surprisingly by the Bentley-dog who I found cuddling with the bunny several different times.

I also recently inherited a giant bag (garbage bag-sized) of lace trim.  There was more in there than I could ever use in a million years, so I thought I'd make a fun skirt for Anna's dress up chest.  It's pretty long for her now, but with any luck she'll be able to play with it for a long time.  I hope she likes it- it seems like the kind of thing that would go well for dress up.  I, for one, imagine using it as a headpiece as well, but maybe I was the only small child who liked to turn dress up clothes into elaborate veils and hats....  I was inspired by all the no-sew tutu tutorials, but I didn't want all the bulk of knots around the waist, so I just folded each piece of lace in half and sewed a little pocked on the top and then threaded it on the elastic.  I did knot a couple of short curly pieces on top after threading all the rest just to give texture.  I feel like I hardly made a dent in the lace selection (I estimate having used ~50 yards for the skirt) so there's plenty left for other projects.  Thanks so much to my mom's friend Willa who gave it all to me.  It turned out to be a bit too big for Anna just yet, but Alex loved wearing it over his head- he looked like a Norseman draped in furs or something!

Finally I made Alex a "who loves Alex" book just like the one I made Anna before.  Evidently I didn't blog about it.  Anyway, it's a photo book with big pictures of Alex on each page with all the people who love him.  That is,  "This is Grandmother.  Grandmother loves Alex!" and so on.  The printouts are just regular printer paper in sheet protectors, intended to be swapped out easily if handled too roughly.  Becky said Anna really enjoyed looking at hers, so I decided to make one for Alex too.