Here are my wine bottles dressed up for the season. I knit some of these last year and had one red hat and scarf set for myself, but it didn't show up this year in my Christmas boxes. I didn't do a lot of decorating because we won't be home for Christmas and I guess I thought it would be easier to knit another red set than to dig through all my boxes to find it. I suppose it will show up next year and I will think I need to get another wine bottle. I found the gold bottle at Goodwill last year but I'm pretty sure I can find these at a local grocery store (with wine!).
My friend, Kathy, wanted me to get some Folgers coffee containers from another friend who uses that brand of coffee and searches out people who can re-purpose the plastic containers the coffee comes in. I took a few to use for my crafts and requested some for Kathy. When I got them recently, I thought it might be fun to wrap them up as a "Christmas gift". I just used some glittered tissue to wrap them, some fleece to make a hat and scarf, an orange pipe cleaner for the nose, a few buttons, and they became a snowman.
This little German putz house is for Julia's first Christmas which she will spend in Germany with Oma and Opa. It was my "inspiration", but Merwin actually implemented it by making a paper prototype and then tediously cutting all the pieces out of craft wood, painting, staining and gluing. We brainstormed ideas for attaching it to a tree for use as an ornament and decided to use a clothespin with magnets. The clothespin can be clipped to the branch and then the house just sits on the clothespin. There is a magnet inside the base of the house and on top of the clothespin. The magnets were Merwin's brainstorm, which allows the little house to be equally happy sitting on a shelf (without the clothespin). Merwin put brown stain on the clothespin, which helps camouflage it in the branches. I added the glitter and the little tree. There's also a small hole in the back where a light bulb can be inserted. Definitely a gift from both of us!
Here are a couple of yo-yo animals that will be Christmas gifts for Sonja (the elephant) and Julia (the bear). The yo-yos are fun to make. The instructions for sewing the heads together are a little confusing, and sewing all the yo-yos tightly together is a bit difficult. A very strong thread is necessary, since the one I made for Iris, I've had to sew back together a couple times. With these, I ended up stringing two yo-yos and then making a knot to hold them before stringing two more and knotting. I hope they hold up well.
Leslie's shrug (on the right) uses the same pattern and yarn (color Kenai Fjords) with some changes. I used size 9 needles again, casting on 150 stitches. Instead of knitting in stockinette, I used a one-row pattern that is reversible. Since Leslie is a little shorter than Emelie, I made her shrug a couple inches shorter.
Next, I made a drop-stitch scarf for Emelie. This is Lion Brand Heartland yarn again, color Cuyahoga Valley (all the colors are named after National Parks). Emelie had trouble choosing between Cuyahoga Valley and Olympic for the shrug, so I'm surprising her with the scarf knit with the other yarn. I used a pattern that I found on the internet for a drop leaf scarf knit on the bias, changed it up just a bit, and ended up sewing the ends together to make it an infinity scarf. I wanted it bulky, so I knit with two strands of yarn together on size 10 needles, cast on 30 stitches. 
Julia likes to chew/suck on the tags on her toys, so I made her a taggie. She seems to like to finger the machine embroidery soft book I made her, so I decided to make a machine embroidery design on the front of the taggie. I've been wanting to use this cute cat fabric for a while. I just selected various ribbons from my SABLE, and added some pom-pom yarn for a little additional tactile interest. It also has some plastic cereal box lining 
