What do you give the person who has everything? Or in my case, what on earth do I give my mum, who travels a lot, has a lovely home, a brilliant brain and probably almost everything in terms of gifts and things that can be given.
The answer is not stuff at all. In common with a gazillion crafters, I can only hope that time, thought and effort count 🙂
The idea was sparked by a rather lovely pattern idea for Rowan Renew yarn that I saw in the book that originally sparked my crochet blanket making. It consists of crocheting 3 long chains in 3 colours (mine were 3.5m long ish and made a mat of about 6 inches across) and then plaiting them together to form a long, thick rope.
Once that is made, you have to start coiling and stitch it together.
Time consuming and fiddly but well worth the effort.
The mug hug was an on the hoof, ‘try and make it myself’ design. It worked, by and large. From memory it was a chain to fit the bottom, slipped stitched together, followed by 2 rounds of doubles. Then there was a colour change to red and 2 (?) rounds of trebles but stopping and going back in the other direction rather than joining in a circle to allow for the handle. A colour change and a green row of trebles and a then a colour change to yellow and a double row of trebles. Finally a colour change to green and a single row of doubles that joined back up at the top. It fits snuggly over the handle and is eased off for washing. I fixed a button on to the space under the handle on one side (using a yarn end from a colour change that was still attached) and it uses the gap between two trebles as a button hole. This allows it to fit more tightly while on the mug and stops it from dropping or slipping too much as you hold it.
The fun of the hamper though was going out and finding nice biscuits, the plate and mug (perfect match, thank you Tesco!) and the hot chocolate, plant etc. I hope she liked it, I think she did. Maybe next year I’ll manage homemade biscuits too 😉
