A Time of Gifts

So I might have failed on the well-fed Christmas cake, the hand-made cards and the crackers but never let it be said that I neglect the homemade gifts. An essential component of the stockings and a few of these I did manage...just, except for Bookhound who can never decide what he wants me to make and ended up with a thing for cleaning the blinds instead and the Gamekeeper who asked for long shooting socks or hose as they call them in the catalogues. These come up to the knee and he's got great long legs, I'll make a start and would probably aim to finish those sometime during the 2012 Olympics.
Firstly the Tinker had been enviously eyeing my homemade, customised Sony e reader cover so I made him one of his own in bookish-themed fabric. The Tinker now very attached to his e reader and uses it all the time. So far he's notched up several books on it including The Count of Monte Cristo and Frankenstein.

For Offspringette I'd wrapped up the Colinette Jitterbug socks and also resurrected a scarf that I'd started when that fluffy, nightmare to knit, stretchy wool first came out. This is where I glance across to Yarn Harlot who knocks up a scarf in an afternoon to give as a gift that same evening, not five years later.
No matter, things were progressing quite well if a little behind the times fashion-wise. I just hoped this lack of attention to detail would all be buried and forgotten in the loving care lavished on the homemade element.

It's awful stuff to knit because you can't see if you've dropped a stitch or not so you just have to crack on in sure and certain hope that if you have it will unravel and you might notice, which I did until Offspringette, unknowing of this impending fashion disaster, announced that she'd really like a hot water bottle with a knitted cover.
Much better idea.
It's now official, you can turn a scarf into a hotwater bottle cover quite easily. Just keep knitting and do a bit of decreasing, knit some more, stitch it all up, make the top bit fold over, drop a few stitches to make it look like you've made a clever buttonhole,stretch it a bit, add a button and abracadabra,

The Kayaker is another whole fussy, fashion-conscious, don't-make-me-look-stupid department to himself. You could waste weeks of your life knitting the very wrong thing so I wrapped this up for him and loved the look on his face when he opened it,

then said if you want the hat I'll knit it for you, if not that wool can go back in the stash.
He wanted the hat and we settled on the simple Stitch 'n Bitch pattern which I then adapted for a circular needle and it was done through a long evening (one of those that starts at about 4pm) .
Quite astonishingly this hasn't left his head for a week.
Result.