Christmas 2015 Finished

I just finished the last of the Christmas gifts for the family, and with very little time to spare.  Christmas is just three days away.  However, these gifts could have been done between Christmas and New Year's because that is when we are celebrating our family Christmas this year.  I just wanted to be done before Christmas so I didn't have to be stressed about getting them finished.  I will be having grandchildren here during that time, and I don't want to have to be working on projects while they are here.  I will not show the two jackets that I finished because they look just like the other two jackets I made for the other two boys.  I finished the hats and a headband that I will show.

The brown hat is from my own pattern.  It is for Tony.  I probably should have made it a little longer, but Tony doesn't wear knit hats over his ears, so for him, I think it is fine.  The other hat is for Jon.  He has a big head and the model head is very small, so the hat looks bigger than it really is.  It is the same pattern as I made for Marty, which I showed in an earlier blog.

The black hat is for Tom.  He has a slouchy because his hair is often quite long and his hair is so thick that he needs a very large hat to fit over the hair.  The wide headband on the right is for Tom's girlfriend.  Again, because the model head is smaller than a normal head and has no hair, it looks wider than it actually is.  However, it is wide enough to make a nice ear warmer, which is what I intended it to be used for.  It is from the same pattern as one of the headbands that I made for the fair and was able to sell. I really liked the pattern and the color, so it is exactly the same.

I will wait until after the new year before I start working on the orders that I got from the fair.  I will not take much time off, but I will spend a couple of weeks not knitting.

Holiday Festival a Success

The holiday festival was very successful for me.  I was able to sell most of my things and will be able to use pretty much everything that didn't sell for Christmas presents. I was able to finish some infinity scarves and some headbands before the festival that I had not blogged yet.  I remembered to take pictures of the scarves, but I forgot the headbands. Here is a look at the stuff on display.

Infinity scarf

Infinity scarf

Festival display table. The headbands are sort of visible here in the right hand corner of the picture.  Three of them are hanging from the tree and the other one is on the table in front of the others.  Ignore the green price tags.

Festival display table from a different angle

Christmas decoration table

Poster displaying some of my work.

Now that the festival is over, I still have work to do.  I have three orders that I received at the festival.  One needs to be done before Christmas because it is the nativity scene like the one above. I also got orders for two girl sweaters, but both of them can be finished after Christmas.  I still do not know what Rhonda wants me to make.  I had made headbands and scarves thinking that if they didn't sell at the festival that I could sell them to Rhonda.  She mentioned that she wanted hats, scarves, and headbands.  Luckily, all these items do not take long to make.  It is a good thing because Christmas is just around the corner and I still have two jackets to make for boys and about three hats to make for the guys.  I will still be burning the midnight oil for a couple more weeks.  Better get off and get to work.

Christmas things for the festival

I have been working on some things for my booth at the Holiday Festival.  I have knit some Christmas hats and made some decorations with plastic canvas. The plastic canvas makes really nice Christmas things, but to cut the little ornaments out, it took a lot of time, patience (something I lack immensely), and perseverance.  I am very fond of the things I have made and I feel they are really pretty.

The green hat is more for a girl and has a tie at the top which cannot be seen in the picture. The other could be for a girl or boy and has a pompom on top.

This Santa hat has a seed stitch band with the stripes and pompom.

This is a traditional Santa hat with a ribbed band and pompom.

The Christmas tree ornaments on the tree.

This beautiful angel tree topper is my favorite. Her elegance will enhance any Christmas tree.

Rocking horse tree ornament.

This cute little Santa ornament almost met his doom when I inadvertently clued his felt back to his front.  I quickly retrieved the ornament from the felt and with great painstakingly effort was able to get the glue off him without ruining him.

A sparkling star will highlight any tree.

A beautiful little tree for the tree.

This little gingerbread house ornament is probably my favorite. It was a nightmare to cut the canvas correctly.

A simple candle ornament.

Every tree can use a bell to ring good tidings.

I'm not sure why, but the part on this little train that looks blue is actually black.  I used the same yarn as I did for the scene below and the black looks black in it. The red also looks different, but is the same red that I used in some of the other ornaments. This was my first ornament to stitch and it took me the longest.  I just could not get the count right in the area for the wheels.  After many take outs and do overs, I finally got it to look like it was supposed to look.

This little tri-fold nativity scene is ideal for any household with little people who like to pick things up and play with them.  The two little sheep add some 3-D to the look of the scene.

This little elegant treasure box was difficult only in that the gold thread that I used is actually for jewelry and it is very stretchy.  It was very hard to thread through the needle and if it went through too much yarn, it would stick and the gold thread would separate from the stretchy material under it.  I also had to double the thread and go through every hole at least twice.  It was also very hard to hide the places where I started and ended with a string.  I had to re-thread often to keep it from fraying and breaking apart.

This shows the top of the lid with the little bell that was done with the shiny, stretchy, gold thread.

This shows how the lid actually sits inside the box. I will fill the box with chocolates wrapped in shiny gold paper.

This cute little Ho, ho, ho, ho tissue box cover will brighten a bathroom vanity with holiday cheer.

I plan to do a few more knit items, like headbands, and that will be it for the booth.  The festival is this coming Saturday, so I will finish the headbands and turn my attention to the set up plans for the booth. 

A Little Halloween, A Little Christmas Festival

I will start with the Halloween things since I got some pretty nice shots of the kiddos in their costumes.  Such fun, and they all looked so nice.

Luke Skywalker (Joey) and Batman (Jackson).

Princess Leah (Lexi) with a sweet witch (Zoe).

Luke Skywalker with his sister, Leah.

The not so sweet witch with the super hero Batman.  Maybe Batman will have to save the world from the evil witch.

Luke, Leah, evil witch, and Batman ready for trick-or-treat.

With Halloween out of the way, I turned my attention to projects for the Christmas festival that will be on Dec. 5th.  I have decided to have a booth at the festival and I had nothing to put up for sale, so I have been working around the clock in every spare moment I have to finish some products.  Here are my accomplishments so far.

My sweet little Annie makes the cutest cow on the planet Earth. She loved smiling for me, but it was very difficult to get her to stay still and keep the hat on long enough to take her picture.  This is the best one I could get.

These are the hats that could go as a set with the accompanying toy.  I had patterns for the hats and the toys, although they were from totally different pattern books.  They looked so similar that I thought it might make a good combination.  The hats can sell separately from the toys, or they can go as a set.

I do have a cat pattern for a toy also, but I may not get time to make it to go with the cat hat.  I do not have a pattern for a knitted cow, but I do have a pattern for a cloth toy.  I may also make one of those later if I get time.

These are the two lady or older girl hats. The purple one is called a cam and just sits on the top of the head like a barrette. If this one does not sell, my granddaughter, Dot, wants it.  That is good because it is made from the same yarn that I used to make her Christmas sweater.  The gray hat is like the one that I made for me last year and so many people liked it that they had me make them one.  All of these hats, except for mine, are made from this same dark gray yarn.  The picture doesn't show the cable stitching too well.  Someone has already seen this hat and wants to buy it.

I think I really need to retake this picture.  These are my men hats.  The one on the left is just a ribbed hat that sits just over the ears.  The one on the right is a slouchy but it is hard to see it in this picture.

Some more toys that do not have matching hats.  This is the adorable little skunk wearing a flower to sweeten her smell.

This just shows the skunk from the back view so that you can see the flower better and also the stripe.

This nutty little squirrel comes with a winter hat to keep him warm.

View of the squirrel without the hat.

Side view of the squirrel so that you can see his tail.

2-year-old boy's hooded sweater zippers up the front.

12-18 month old cabled hoodie.

I am going to make some Christmas hats next.  If I get time, I would like to make some more men's hats and possibly some more animal hat, toy combinations.  I plan to also make some Christmas decorations out of plastic canvas.  I have not done that for quite a while and I think it would be fun to do for a change.  I may also make some of my cloth toys on the sewing machine.  We will see.  That might be too ambitious.

Costumes Finished

I just finished the costumes for this year.  I can show some of the kids with their costumes now and will show the others after Halloween.  I made one costume that I forgot to take a picture of before I sent it off to the little boy who needed it for the church party this coming Friday.  I will take a picture of him that night wearing the lion costume that he wanted.

Portia wearing her yellow pumpkin with orange eyes, no mouth and nose, and a yellow hat with a pink stem (although it doesn't really look pink in the picture) just like she ordered.

Portia showing her clock on the back of her pumpkin.  This was also a special order from her.

Ellis striking a serious pose in his Black Panther costume.

The Black Panther showing off another fearsome pose.

Lexi's Princess Leah from Star Wars costume. The back is just plain so I didn't show it.

Joey's Luke Skywalker from the series where he wore black. It is hard to see the detail in this costume because everything is black, except for the white triangle on the front of the shirt. I was really happy with the way the vest and belt turned out.

I will blog more pictures after I am able to capture the kiddos in their costumes.

Well That Didn't Take Too Long!

I got a call from my Maine grandchildren last night. They were calling to place their orders for the Halloween costumes.  Ellis, age 8 wanted to be the Black Panther, which is a new character in the Avengers series.  I didn't know what he looked like, but the internet is wonderful.  I pulled up a good picture of the character that looked easy enough to make the costume.  It took a whole night just to cut it out.  I think the cutting is always the hardest thing to do.  I sewed it this morning and was surprised at how easy my plan worked, except for those darn muscles.  The shoulder and arm muscles are the hardest.  I made them too long, then too short, then still not long enough, and finally, I hope they are going to be okay.  They still look a little too short.  I will have to wait to see after he tries it on. 

Portia was another story.  What you get from a 4-year old can be quite surprising.  You will see when you take a peek at her costumes.  I made a pumpkin for her last year and she really loved it.  Her mom said she wore it all the time until she could no longer squeeze into it.  Well, she loved it so much that she requested a pumpkin again this year.  No amount of coaxing from her mom and me would work.  She was determined to be a pumpkin again this year, but, it is quite different from last year's.  She requested that the pumpkin be yellow, instead of orange.  The eyes were to be orange, but absolutely no mouth or nose.  I tried to convince her that a pumpkin should have a mouth, but she wasn't buying it.  Since I knitted a hat last year that had a stem on it, she needs one this year, too, but like the rest of the costume, it is different.  She wants the hat to be yellow like the pumpkin, but the stem has to be pink.  This is where it really gets interesting, on the back of the pumpkin, there is to be a clock.  Don't ask me what that one is about, but she insisted that I put a clock on the back.

So, here is the Black Panther. Things look a little out of proportion with no body in them, but I think when it is on, it will look more normal.  I made a one piece body suit like the animal pattern that I use to make my costumes out of. I made the vest and belt out of vinyl, white felt for the strip and the stars, and some other shiny red material. The ears and boots are also vinyl.  The arms look really skinny here because there are wrist bands around the elbows. I purchased them and some batting gloves and volleyball knee pads.  I hot glue gunned the stars on to cover the logos on the purchased items. The character also had bands around his wrists, but the batting gloves already had a band, so I didn't have to make them.  I hope this will fit.  Ellis is getting pretty tall, so that shouldn't be a problem.

With a little imagination, I hope you can see a pumpkin in this costume. It is what she asked for, so I hope it will fit. I bought a black shirt and some black leggings to go under her costume.

I hope the numbers will stay on.  I had to use stick on letters.  They seem pretty good right now, but with a little rubbing, I am afraid they will come off.  They are too tiny to use glue to put them on, so if they fall off, I guess we will have to use a black marker and just draw the numbers on. For a little while the numbers should work.

As for the hat that goes with Portia's, I will work on it on the ride up to Maine.  We are going up this weekend and I always like to have some knitting to work on.  I will blog a picture of it when she is wearing it.  I will be taking my sewing machine along, just in case I have to change the sizing on anything, or do some other tweaking of the costumes.