birthday bathmat?

tonight i cast-on for the muriwai bathmat (i'm on a major casting-on kick) and i'm debating whether or not to give it to my mom as part of her birthday gift next month. i feel like a bathmat might not be a very personal birthday gift....but its handknit! from the heart! i don't know, what do you think?
the bathmat is knit holding two strands together, and instead of doing one solid color...

i'm going to do these two, to give it a little pizazz! i really like the speckles of color in the cream yarn...

i guess if i don't finish it by september 17 though, that will make it easy for me to decide if i should gift it or not! :)