More DIY Gifts
During the good times of the last few years, a lot of people have lost the ability to give thoughtful and price conscious gifts, preferring instead to give large vouchers for high end departments stores. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the odd Brown Thomas Voucher because that would be a total lie, but for the most part they are all about value and very little about substance. If you have been relying on vouchers as your fail safe present over the last few years, perhaps now is the time to think outside the box, especially if you’re feeling the pinch.
I have recently taken up crochet and knitting again after a break of 17 years (the last thing I crocheted was lovely cushion covers for my cousins which were done in colours to match their bedrooms). I figured maybe this forgotten skill could be put to use for gifts again. After some intensive revision with the help of youtube I got back into the swing of it pretty quickly. I picked up some 100% acrylic yarn in Aldi, now most serious knitters or crocheters will bawk at the thought of that squeeky yarn but it has it’s uses. I used it for a throw for my Grand-Aunt who is in a nursing home at the moment. The yarn was about €1 per ball and I used about 3 of them for this, the hook was €4.85 from This is Knit. This is basically just a giant granny square but you could do lots of smaller granny squares in different colours and attach them together afterwards if you wanted. Your local yarn store will have a bargain bin so get hunting for some nice colours.
By the way I saw one similar to this on a window of a shop recently being sold for €35.
Granny Square throws are also gorgeous Christening or New Baby presents. Last week in Aldi in Limerick they had the Baby version of the 100% Acrylic yarn in a beautiful baby blue colour. I don’t have kids but I have it on good authority that they are messy and that they will have no respect for your 100% cotton creation so by all accounts acrylic is the way to go.
Wow Maz that’s very impressive. I never knew you could get yarn from Aldi. I don’t crotchet but I have a few friends who do and I’ll pass on your post!
That looks nice, I could be tempted to take that up myself. Recently had another go at knitting and liked it.
Thanks girls, it was a great project for when you’ve loads going on as you don’t have to concentrate, same thing over and over again! Aldi and Lidl both have yarn every so often just a matter of keeping an eye out.
I remember making a shawl like that with a big fringe for my eldest niece’s christening….. 39 years ago!
Don’t you just love You tube. I am teaching myself continental knitting after 20 years of the throw method:) forgot about crocheting. That’s a good idea.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:32 am
[...] Apologies for going AWOL for the last few days, I’ll be back with some crafty updates soon, just need to upload some pictures. In the meantime Frugal Ireland has published another post by little ole me, you can read that here! [...]