Gifts For Family

My recent trip to New York was mainly in celebration of my Dad's birthday. For his birthday, I decided to go all homemade. I made him a loaf of cranberry nut bread, since he loves it when his mom makes it. Unfortunately, the store was all out of cranberries and my grandmother (mom's mom) suggested that I use some chopped up jellied cranberry sauce instead. It was passable, but not ideal, as you might guess.

Much better than the cranberry bread, though, was the stenciled long-sleeve T-shirt:



Yes, there is a story behind the shirt. When I was in elementary school, my mother used to substitute teach in my school. During one of her many substitutions , she came across and basic reader book called, "Jim Wins". It had some riveting text that went something like this:

See Jim
See Jim Win
Win Jim Win
Jim Wins!

My dad, whose name is Jim, thought this was brilliant and has adopted it as a sort of personal theme ever since. Now I guess I have to buy the book next.


Since I would be visiting family in New York, I decided to make my sister a "just because" gift. I had recently told her that I wanted to try felting some wool sweaters and she, being an excellent thrifter, decided to find me some sweaters to felt. Well, she wasn't very successful and only succeeded in finding me a 30% wool sweater. I felted up a little bit and I used it to make Annie this little hip purse and stuffed spider. All other materials used in this project were already in my stash. I love projects that come from my stash. They are so satisfying!