christmas craft

our final holiday celebration was saturday. my family (sisters, kids, cousins) all gathered here for dinner, games and gifts. the tradition of christmas crafts is so old, that the history is murky. it started with my mom and sisters making (with their own hands) gifts for each other. we continued with that as us 'youngers' grew up and soon we were crafting for a number that was too crazy. we started drawing a name to craft for and soon the rules evolved to include that the item just needed to be hand-crafted... by any ones hands!
names were drawn on december first, and i was crafting for my niece. i had a project already in mind for her, so i just needed to make it happen. she had called me earlier in the month while she was standing in the yarn aisle at acmoore. having just bought a new coat, she was trying to find yarn to have me make a scarf. i will freely admit to being a yarn snob. she was contemplating a skein of generic yarn and i just couldn't let her do it. after telling her to back away, i promised to find just the right fiber for a scarf. so who do i go to? amythefibergoddess! i had three hanks of natural alpaca yarn that i thought would be just perfect. now.... just to match the colors i wanted. hot pink and dark chocolate.

 it doesn't show well, but there are beautiful shades of violet and caramel in the handpaints. she kettle dyed the pink skein and i was good to go.
next was choosing a pattern. i started with the seaside rumpus ( twice) and had no luck negotiating that. as i was just starting to regret the entire project, i remembered the miami beach shawl that i had done for amy.
it was perfect!

i'm contemplating matching fingerless mitts for her january birthday. with this cold snap, i may just cast them on!
what did i get? my cousin has just return from two years in the peace corps, located in the Ukraine. she gave me a hand made basket from her village filled with crocheted snowflakes.

she made each snowflake different. i'm sooooo loving these. my plan is to suspend them in my kitchen windows to see every day. the basket? she told me they fill them with flowers, but i'll be putting needles and notions in mine.