A pouch full of crochet gifts are now on their way to family in Manila: coin purses, hairbands, hairclips, bracelets and necklaces. Each one is labelled with Christmas greetings.

Here is one of the items in the pouch, a pair of hairclips with Edward’s face on it. This one is for my sister and I’m going to challenge her to wear this to work.

Edward and a Flower. I used snap hairclips for this.

And here are two of several hairbands that I made out of my obsession with the crocheted Irish leaf. Of course, these leaves are not done in the traditional Irish crochet method, but these are done in simple chain and single-crochet stitches with acrylic yarn and wool.

Two of the leafy hairbands I made for my family.

I love these hairbands and they work – they hold back the hair in a way that hairbands should, thank goodness. I used 1 inch wide garters for these.

I used 1-inch wide garters for the hairbands - in black color, and in white color for older family members with lovely white hair!

Last night, I tried making the leaves with fingering weight acrylic-mohair yarn in pink and gray. Here are the leaves while I was working out a way to arrange them to make a necklace.

Trying out the leaves in mohair-acrylic yarn. I promise to try luxury yarns next year!

The leaves are joined together with silver craft wire and in between are beads in clear and pink pearl colors.

Roadtesting my new necklace.

It wasn’t easy figuring out what kind of closure to use. I had though of buttons and beads and wire, then settled for this frosted organza ribbon with pink beads. I love how it turned out!

An idea to develop further next year.

Now if I were to do this necklace again I would like to get a higher gauge of wire so that the leaves will hold together stronger and can be shaped as one pleases.

An old belt buckle and some nylon cord.

Then this afternoon I finished a belt for my husband. His old belt had just broken off the buckle. Now that’s an emergency situation!

Belt in progress.

So I took the buckle and started crocheting on it with some nylon sash cord that I got from the hardware store in Manila more than a year ago.

The finished belt - yet to be roadtested.

I was meaning to use the nylon cord to make a bag but here it works perfectly for a belt! I was so excited that I finished this belt in less than an hour! I used a aluminum hook size 6/0 (3.5mm).
If you have an old belt buckle then you can easily make this. I used this pattern:

Row 1: Sc, ch 1, sc, ch 1, turn. (This first row is worked on the belt buckle)
Row 2: Back-loop sc in sc, bl sc in ch, bl sc in sc, ch 1, turn.
Row 3: Bl sc in sc, ch 1, sk sc, bl sc in next sc, ch 1, turn. (Repeat row 2-3 to desired length)

The back-loop sc gives the belt reasonable stretch, so you can use normal sc if you want a taut belt. However, the bl sc makes quite a nice ridge pattern, and the ch 1 creates a pretty dot across the length of the belt.

Now this gives me new ideas for gifts next Christmas.

My family is now so used to me giving them handmade gifts and they love it. It is not typical, I suppose, since I myself have never received a handmade gift for Christmas. All the gifts I’ve received from family were bought. But you know I would really love to receive a gift that my own family made!

Sometimes, I wonder if people appreciate handmade gifts … It is probably quite a novelty. But it is more than that. I have, of course, received things that were hand-crafted by the person giving them and such things have a peculiar value. The person and thing are linked together in a way very different from something that came from a store.

Strangely, I usually give handmade gifts only to family and not to friends.