…Birdie Stockings

I know this post is long overdue, since it features items I made as Christmas presents, but I still have to show them off anyway!  Trent’s sister, Amanda (whom you’ve seen wearing the monkey hat), and her husband brad (seen wearing the manly mitts) live way off in Seattle.  For a very long time, she’s been wanting some Christmas decorations in the knitted form.  We decided to surprise them for Christmas with some pre-stuffed homemade Christmas stockings.  We didn’t want the stockings to look like your standard green, red, and white stockings, but something a little different for them. 

 

I chose a simple knitted pattern from a great book, Holiday Knits. I knitted in the round using magic loop technique (my first time with magic oop), making one in green with a brown birdie, and one in brown with a green birdie. This was my first experience with embroidering on knits, and I found this video  on youtube to be extremely helpful. The embroidery turned out really nicely!

We stuffed them with fun goodies from World Market, and Brad & Amanda loved them.

btw, the mini stockings of ours that are pictured above are for kitties, not kiddies.  No little rugrats yet!

 

…Christmas stuff

Last year was our very first winter in PA (we are Floridians) so I spent a lot of time indoors making things. Trent & I love Christmas and, being fairly newlywed, we wanted to start some of our own traditions.  I started w/ stockings.

                                          

I made the green one for Trent, red for me, and striped for the kitties… yes, you have now learned that our kitties are unhealthfully important to us.  Anyhow, I think the stockings turned out alright.

 

We wanted them to be simple and timeless so we wouldn’t outgrow them. And I wanted them BIG, so that we couldn’t outgrow them.   Of course, on Christmas morning, I found stuffed in my stocking a knitting magazine featuring a charming nativity set. The set would have to wait, but I got started right away on a larger version of the nativity set’s angel, and custom-made her as the tree topper.

  

Of course, she’s pictured as a paper towel holder topper because we had gotten rid of the tree by the time she was done. But it’s one holy paper towel holder. Anyway, it took me an entire year to knit through all the figures – not including the animals, which may have to wait till next year.