How I Made 24 Gifts in 64 Days Part 1

 

Making gifts for Christmas ALWAYS seems like a FANTASTIC idea, right? You’re so excited to get all the stuff to make that special person that special gift. Oh, it is SO EXCITING!!

Maybe you learned a new skill or craft, and you can’t wait to make those four people on your list a new pair of socks or a hat…am I right?

Well, in this series, you will see how my gift making came out of sheer necessity. There just wasn’t enough money for a retail Christmas for fourteen kids and my husband. I had to get crafty in more ways than one.

I always hang out on Ravelry, so I picked out a pattern for an afghan early on, say like September of last year, for my husband. It was crochet, single crochet with bobbles, but hey, I had three months. No biggie.

So, I went and got the yarn for the afghan.

THEN, while I was on Ravelry again, I found this hat. Oh, it was so cool! HAMILTON! I was going to make that for my oldest daughter. She would love it! Right?

It was colorwork, and um, knitted, and um, made with sock weight yarn. Oh, who cares, I have two whole months to work on it, right? Heck, I’ll get the yarn to make matching gloves too. Go big or go home. That’s me!

Just wait and see what happened to that idea 😖

Again, by chance, I was sitting checking Pinterest when this crochet sweater popped up in my feed. My second oldest daughter was standing behind me and saw it. She said, “Oooh! That’s the one I liked. I pinned that too.”

😮 The minute she left the room, my oldest daughter looked at me and said, “Mom, if you don’t have the money right now, I’ll buy that kit for you so you can get started on it and you can pay me back whenever.” So, on that October 7th, 2017, when daughter 2 left, daughter 1 ordered the kit from Craftsy, and that was that.

As if this weren’t enough work, and, if I hadn’t quarantined myself in my bedroom for a month and a half that would have been all I had time for, I decided that each of the children was going to get a quilt as their big gift for Christmas.

Big gift? Yes, since the beginning of our child-rearing years, my husband and I agreed that at Christmas, the children would each get three gifts as the Infant Jesus on His birthday. This reminds them of exactly what the holiday is about, and in our minds, it teaches them to be grateful for what they have and not to want for too much. So, we still do it to this day, and the quilts were going to be big.

Do you know how long it takes to make a quilt approximately 70” by 75”? IT DOESN’T MATTER when you have more time than money. You make it work however you can and for the total cost of $33 a quilt, start to finish; it just HAD to get done.

So, with my husband by my side, we headed to the fabric store. That was on October 21, 2017, at 6:55 pm. Really. I checked the picture data. 😉 And, while both of us thought I was completely out of my mind, I’m sure, he let me buy all the fabric I needed trusting that I would get the work done because we spent most of the Christmas money that we had on that trip.

A few days later, I find out that my oldest daughter had wanted an overcoat made out of a certain color wool for a certain cosplay she was doing. No, I didn’t!! Yes, I did!! On October 30th I ordered the blue wool for that overcoat. OUT. OF. MY. MIND. I. KNOW.

I HAD close to two whole months. What’s the big deal? Right?

Ok, what’s the big deal? Well, I still had the other two gifts times 14 children. We spent most of the Christmas money. HMMM… Yarn doesn’t have to cost too much. I’ll make my oldest son a sweater. What? Yeah, ok, a sweater. I will use bulky yarn and a big needle, and it will sail along. No problem. With coupons and discounts, I think I was under 15 dollars on that hoodie. IT’S NOVEMBER, YOU CRAZY WOMAN!!

Yeah, it turned into November before I knew it. I could feel the cortisol building up in my body. BUT I put my nose to the grindstone and kept on going.

Needless to say, there is much more to this story and many more projects to talk about so join me in post #2 where I will begin to show you exactly what went into those 24 gifts and how they got finished in roughly 64 days.