a handmade gift exchange

Back in University my friends and I started a secret santa gift exchange. Each year we would draw names and then get together to give our surprise gift before we all headed home for the holidays. Since graduating we have all spread out around Canada and one of us in the United States, but we have still kept up our secret santa tradition every year. Jeff chooses the names from a hat and emails each of us who's secret santa we will be. Then we ship our gifts right before the holidays and when the gift arrives we email each other images of what we received. This year I made my gift for my good friend Jordana. This scarf is actually a cowl that wraps around twice. I made it using black wool which I hand embroidered. If you wrap it around just the right way the two stitched patterns criss cross at the front. And as it turned out Jordana was also my secret santa. This lovely felt bowl was made my montreal artist Cindy Cantin of C Comme Ca. It looks so nice on our butcher block centre island filled with apples. In fact Jordana gave it to me already filled with apples, along with a home made apple cake accompanied by it's recipe. She's the best at themed gifts.

I hope we continue this tradition forever and ever no matter how spread out we become.