Given that gifts have been disseminated, I can now share the fruits of my crafting – admittedly much less crafting than I would like, I’m really keen to go back to the days when I made almost all of my gifts – perhaps next year…

First, Mom’s scarf!

I was well pleased with how this turned out. Mom absolutely loved it and really adored the colour (lesson learned: any colour that Joan likes, Mom will like – something about Taureans). I used the isobel pattern here with a couple of extra repeats (and no fringe, obv). Would highly recommend – very easy to follow and memorise, blocking was a bit of a pain though – first thing I’d blocked that did not involve a plate). I’d like to particularly thank Jessica Fletcher for her most excellent company during the making of this gift.

Joan tends to receive the majority of the family in-joke gifts. Her card this year will only be understandable to the most hardcore Seinfeld fan:

Next: Joan’s shirt (another complicated family in-joke):

From roughly the first day they met, Joan has been fairly relentless in teasing Don about his “fancy university” (which, of course, makes Don don [ha!] his “fancy university” apparel at strategic moments). When Phil and Smilla were visiting, we learned Phil had all manner of “Stanford Dad” paraphenalia which we found both hilarious and somewhat odd. So, in the absence of an appropriate shirt being available for purchase – I created one. Yay for silkscreening! Again, I’m way chuffed with the result, but after all that work with the scalpel, I really am motivated to get into photo emulsion.

I plan to obtain a photo of Don and Joan in their respective Stanford shirts when Joan awakens from her Christmas nap.

Next post: the inheritance.
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