gift

This is a quick and easy gift idea to make, well put together! All you need is a beer glass and two pairs of socks, a black pair and a white pair. For the white pair I bought sports socks, turned inside out, the texture resembles bubbles perfect for the beer's frothy head. Now all you do is roll and manipulate the socks into the glass until you are happy they look like a pint of Guinness.

*To avoid disappointment, for the recipient, include a bottle of beer as part of the gift too!

This scarf is really quick to knit, I knitted it in a day, still time to knit one as a gift before Christmas.

I bought a lovely soft yarn called Ebba (70% merino 20% alpaca 10% silk) a bulky yarn 12ply, from Woolfish. I used 300 gms to knit the scarf.

Needle size should be 8.00 mm but to be honest I used the largest circular needles I had to hand, 6.5 mm, this gave me a close knit but because it's a scarf it didn't matter.

To get started you will need

If you haven't tried crochet but would like to, this is the perfect project to begin with, it only uses two basic crochet stitches.

Chain, ch - Wrap the yarn over the hook and draw the yarn through to form a new loop.

Double Crochet, dc (US single crochet, sc) - Insert the hook into the work, yarn over the hook and draw the yarn through the work only, yarn over hook draw the yarn through both loops on the hook.

There's still time to knit these 'Just Hatched' chicks for Easter. The pattern is so easy and takes about 30 minutes to an hour to produce a fluffy bird, to contain a Cadbury's creme egg. My free chick pattern is easy to follow, give it a go!

You will need: Facecloth, rubber band, ribbon, small amount of white wool and black embroidery thread.

This is a bit like origami with a facecloth. First fold the facecloth in half diagonally.

Tightly roll the facecloth triangle up, start with the pointy corner so that you end up with the long fold at the end of the roll.

Fold the cloth in half.

Fold in half again, this will form the head and ears. Place a rubber band tightly around the cloth about 2/3 of the way down.

Adjust and play with the cloth until you are happy it looks like a rabbit's head.

This is another idea for painting terracotta pots, Laine at Lanie J. and Co.  has cleverly painted the body of the terracotta pot with black paint. A greeting, in chalk, can be written on the pot, a perfect present for a favourite teacher, maybe.

This couldn't be easier, children can do it. Take a common or garden terracotta pot (I bought mine from Wilkinson's for 29p and 49p) The paint I used was household emulsion for the kitchen/bathroom (I bought tester pots from Wilkinson's). Apply the paint, by dabbing with a sponge, this doesn't leave brush marks. Let the paint dry. I chose to decorate my pots with spots, I applied white paint with the end of a piece of doweling to give me the polka dot effect. Children might want to paint a pot for grandma, let them do it in their own style, it adds to the charm!

I was thinking about making a needle case when I came across this tutorial by Skebba. A little letter needle book, perfect! I adapted the pattern slightly. Then the thought came to me, my needle case could do with a companion, a pin cushion. Keeping to the postal theme I designed a parcel pin cushion, over stuffed and tied with string. I think this postal pair would make a perfect present. 

Bib necklaces are really popular at the moment, but can be expensive so why not make your own.

This is my free pattern and tutorial so you can make one for yourself or to give as a present.

You will need:

FELT, for the base. I cut two bibs out from the pattern and machine stitched them together using a zig-zag stitch.