Tag: Xmas

Two Days ’til Christmas…

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December 23, 2011

12:26 pm

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Everything Else

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… and the stocking is done!

K's Stocking - Done!

(Yes, I blurred K’s full name.)

Pattern: Candy Cane Santa Stocking by Donna Race
Source: Dimensions Gold Collection kit via Jo-Ann Fabric
Notes: This is the third (and final) family stocking, and it definitely took me the longest. It’s also the only one I actually did the final sewing on. (The first sewing I’ve done since I was 14!) Like the others, I lined the front with the white felt that came in the kit and used red felt to create the back of the stocking. It’s probably a good thing that Santa doesn’t stuff the grown-ups’ stockings in our house, since this one might be just a little bit fragile at the seams.

One Stitch at a Time

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October 17, 2008

11:07 am

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Yarn

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Last week, I knit something.  I can’t show you (yet), but I can tell you this: It’s a test knit for Chrissy Gardiner’s forthcoming book, it was fun and fast, and I think it’s an excellent pattern for people who’ve been wanting to try toe-up socks but have been a little intimidated.

Okay, that’s all I’m going to say about that for today.  In other Secret Knitting News, the Knit Picks sample I knit back in July appeared in the latest catalog and on the Knit Picks site.

I haven’t been doing much knitting of late, since I’ve been trying to make some progress on “Santa’s Journey”, my Christmas stocking.  Here’s what it looks like so far:

Stocking in Progress

Santa is slowly materializing, right before my very eyes. I have realized that by working from the bottom up, I’m going to have a headless Santa at some point. I promise to take a picture.

Not knitting has not stopped me from increasing my stash, though.  I resisted all the new stuff in the latest Loopy Ewe sneak-up, but bought the first three skeins of Sanguine Gryphon’s Kypria series:

Sanguine Gryphon

Left to right, that’s “The Deep-Bosomed Earth” (#1), “Momos” (#2), and “A Fateful Plan” (#3). The three tags with paragraphs of the story are tacked up on the corkboard in my office.

I also scored some Yarntini at long last, courtesy of Sonny & Shear:

Yarntini

Those are “Designated Driver” and “4-8-15-16-23-42”. There are still a few skeins of each (and some others) available for sale, if you’d like a Yarntini fix, too. I’m pondering buying some more of the “Designated Driver” and making a shawl. If I ever get to actually knit again.

Now with Even Less Knitting!

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July 30, 2008

8:41 am

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Yarn

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The last several months have been interesting around here. We decided to try to sell our house and move a couple of miles eastward. We found a house we liked, and we had an offer on our house, and then one day into the escrow, the buyer pulled out. Our contract with our realtor expired, we waited a while, and then we went back on the market with a new realtor. We found a house we liked, and we got an offer on our house with a promise that there would be no problem finishing the escrow in 30 days.

Sixty-four days later, we closed the sale. Week after week, we thought we’d be moving in another week or two.  My knitting stuff was among the first stuff packed up (in an effort to keep myself from procrastinating on packing up the rest of the stuff, you see).

Since then, just about the only knitting I’ve been doing has been a sample knit for Knit Picks, which I can’t share until it appears in their catalog.

And, since it’s high summer, what else would I be thinking about but Christmas?  Last week, I started work on another cross-stitch stocking, this time one for me.  It’s a little more complicated than the one I did for Little Miss, with metallic threads and beads and something called couching that I may have done once before… in junior high Home Ec class.

A while back, I signed up for Summer of Socks.  Have I done any socks this summer?  No.  I started one, but I haven’t made much progress.

Soon to come: pictures of that cross-stitch and maybe some progress on the sock.

One Week to Spare

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December 19, 2007

4:29 pm

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Checking His List (Public Photo)

 

Last night, I put the finishing touches on Checking His List.  I trimmed the selvedge, hand-stitched the hem at the top of the aida cloth, braided the yarn for the loop, and stitched that onto the side.  K’s coworker had sewn up the seam for us Monday night.  It’s now hanging proudly over the fireplace.  Little Miss’ name is stitched at the top, though you can’t see it in the photo.

I think it’s fantastic, if I do say so myself.  And nobody can say anything about the appearance of the back side of the stitching, since I used the included white felt to line it and made the back out of red felt.

Stashdown 2008

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December 14, 2007

11:11 am

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Last night, as I was outlining a candy cane in Santa’s pocket, I discovered a mistake.  Three little red stitches, painstakingly placed… one stitch to the left of where they should have been.

I adjusted the outline and moved on.  I am so not ripping out three stitches less than two weeks before Christmas Eve.  I did, however, rip out two French knots that have been bugging me ever since I did them.  They looked sloppy and wrong, and they will be redone.

While my crafting energies are focused on the stocking, I’ve also been fiddling with my Queue over on Ravelry.  I’ve been matching up projects in my Queue to yarns in my Stash, and I discovered that I already have the yarn on hand for 30+ projects, including two sweaters for Little Miss that may not go up to an appropriate size now.

Given this situation, it’s time for a Stashdown.  In the New Year, I’m going to focus on the projects I’ve lined up and the yarns I’ve got tucked away.  I’ll let y’all know how it goes.