The reveal

As Christmas presents have been safely delivered and unwrapped, here are the finished gifts.

My sister's beret and scarf:

My mother's scarf:

My brother received an ipod for Christmas, which was clearly going to get scratched quickly. I felt obliged to whip up an ipod cosy for him using the leftovers from my sister's hat, conveniently also trying a new technique of knitting in the round on 2 straight needles. This was quite strange as it involved knitting inside out and slipping alternate stitches. I found I needed to check regularly that I had not accidentally missed a slipped stitch and knitted the two sides together.

We decided a felted cosy would protect better, so I gave the finished item a five minute hand felting under the tap last night. To my shock, the wool felted so quickly and completely that I could barely get the cosy on the ipod! Fortunately, my brother thought that the tighter the fit the less likely the ipod was to fall out, so it's all good!