Little Finishes for Friday

I've been making such good progress on my gift knitting this week that I'm forcing myself to put down the needles and share some of the little finishes I've had this past week.

A Minecraft hat for a nephew. This was the only request I had this year for something knitted. I made one for my nephew a few years ago and he's asked for a second one. I think I originally made it for his father but my nephew took it. Used this free pattern.

Got my son to try it on saying I wouldn't post his picture. He agreed I could post it since I didn't show his face.

My next finish happened so quickly that I haven't shared any progress pictures here. I started it last Thursday evening and by Friday morning I had 4 limbs.

Over the weekend I finished a tail, 2 ears and a nose I decided not to use. And started the body - not shown.

Monday afternoon I finished Aiko, the Ninja Cat. Made for one of my niece's who takes Kung Fu lessons. She can rename it. If I'm able, I'd like to get the different colour belts made for Christmas too - not part of the pattern, just something I wanted to do.

I tried to get Floyd to hold it still to show how big it is. But it's a ninja, and ninja cats don't stay still. Or so I was told.

I put her to work guarding our house.

Floyd helped me with another finish last week. I tried two different recipes to make birdseed shapes. The first one was this recipe. The difference between this one and the other recipe I tried is that the unflavored gelatin isn't activated with boiling water so the recipe has corn syrup and flour in it. But with no boiling water, this was toddler friendly. 

He liked putting the straw pieces in to make the string hole.

And here is my tray of crap, as I came to think of it. This recipe gets a thumbs down. Partly my fault for using cookie cutters that had small, thin parts but even the bigger ones fell apart. Only a few turned out.

I laid in bed that night trying to think how I could make better molds and remembered the donut tray my mother gave me for Christmas last year. Hey mom, I finally found a use for it.

So I used the second recipe, found here. Only alteration was adding 3 cups of birdseed instead of 2 since there was a lot of liquid left. I filled the molds in myself this time but my older kids could have helped but I think they were busy.

I let them dry overnight in the mold before flipping them over. They all popped out perfect.

I doubled up some of the birdseed donuts on the string. Only had 4 from the first batch that were good enough and we kept 2 of them. Every time you pick one up, birdseed falls off so I don't think they will travel well. I put the birdseed donuts we are gifting in ziplock baggies to prevent making a mess under the tree. I think I'm going to make another batch of the birdseed donuts so there is enough to give aunts and uncles. The ones above are going to grandparents.

One from the first recipe hanging outside.

Birdseed donuts.

And one last little finish. I saw this on pinterest last December but it was too late for me to start collecting yarn bits. I saved all my yarn ends this year and....

... had enough to fill 4 suet feeders. These three are gifts. The fourth we are keeping.

I really hope the birds take some of the yarn to make their nests when we put it back outside in the spring.

Lots of little finishes done. Now I'm left with sweater knitting and quilting quilts. 

Have you been making gifts that aren't knit, crocheted or quilted? It feels like my pinterest boards are finally being of some use this Christmas.