Winter Birthday Gifts For My Men

Knowing that we would be in Iowa with my entire immediate family for Christmas, I wanted to be sure to have birthday gifts as well as Christmas gifts for all of the winter birthdays.  In my family that includes three men - my dad's birthday is in late November, my brother-in-law Nick's birthday is in early December, and my brother Aaron's birthday is in mid-February.  I decided that I would make them all monogrammed handkerchiefs, as they are all men of taste and, to varying degrees, enjoy old-fashioned things. 

I hand-hemmed 12" squares of soft white cotton, and chose fonts and colors based on each recipient's individual style.  Brian the Engineer was consulted for his opinion on these matters, as well.  (His birthday is in August, and I was already planning on making him a monogrammed handkerchief.  It just won't be a surprise.) 

I played around with fonts on my computer, finding many that I liked:  

And we chose the ones we thought looked best for those particular initials.

I hadn't quite finished working on this project before we left Virginia, so I ended up borrowing an embroidery hoop from my mom in order to finish up.

I hadn't used this style of hoop in the past, but I rather like it!  The metal ring does all the work of stretching the fabric taut so I didn't have to adjust it at all.

Here are the completed handkerchiefs, washed and ironed and ready to present:

I gave them to all of the guys after dinner on Christmas Eve, just before we started getting ready to go to church for the candlelight service.  Nick decided to wear his as a pocket square:

So after we came home from church, the other two followed suit and I got fun pictures:

It was a really fun project!  I like doing hand embroidery, but I have learned that I do not enjoy doing satin stitch on straight lines.  :p  The curvy lines are much more forgiving, in my experience.