So this is my Friday replacement. I had to have a new theme to put in place of the Bake Off. I had a few ideas floating around but I settled on this one. I know that there will be many of you wondering why on earth I would be doing this since it's not even Halloween. Well, I have a number of reasons. First of all Christmas is going to be rubbish this year. Most of you will know that Christmas was my mum's holiday. She would have celebrated it all year long if she could and she would start preparing for the next Christmas as soon as the current one was over. Christmas films would make an appearance as early as July. It's also her birthday. So you can imagine that none of us are looking forward to it. My mum would have hated that and so I am trying to keep things more positive and this is my way of doing that. This is for her really.
The second reason is that if you are a crafter you will know there is no such thing as too early when it comes to starting you crafts for Christmas. I know a few people who have started already. If you include today there are actually only 10 Friday's left until the big day. That's not a lot of time to get your gifts ready. So each week I am going to post a few ideas with some links so that you can be ready too.
This week I decided to focus on stockings. I have always intended to make stockings for family. I even started once and I have no idea where that went to. My friend Lisa of For the Love of Yarn has created a stocking kit. You get some of her scrummy yarn (in red or green). Enough of which to make not one but two stockings. You get the pattern for the stocking as well as a few little extras. My kit arrived this week and I plan on getting started with it soon.
I then did my usual and looked around facebook for more inspiration. I came across this beautiful, Scandinavian style, knitted stocking. This pattern is available from ravelry and is by Kirsten Spurkland. It's not a free pattern and I doubt anyone would expect it to be. I would need more than the 10 Fridays we have to make at least one of these but I think it would be worth it.
The pattern for these stockings is free on the other hand and can also be found on ravelry. It's called Fabulously Festive Christmas Stockings by Julie King. I like their bright colours but I also like the fact that they make use of different types of crochet stitches. You could also pick your colour choices to suit the individual. The downside of course is all the ends you would have to sew in. Might be worth it though.
I decided that no stocking list would be complete without one that has been stitched. This particular one comes with a free tutorial by Sew Like Mum.You can also visit her blog here and have a look at lots of other good tutorials. I have added this link to my tutorial page and the blog to my blog list page. I would be very tempted to try this one as there are a lot of lovely Christmas fabrics out just now.
Last but not least I spotted these little Christmas stockings that you can hang on your tree. My mum had knitted a few of these for her tree when I was little and she used to fill them with candy canes and other sweets. I like that these ones are hung up like a garland and if you were to knit enough of them you could create an advent calendar. This is also a free pattern which is by Little Cotton Rabbits. I might even have a go at one myself this year. You never know. Little Cotton Rabbits itself looks like a lovely blog which you can find here (as well as on my craft blog page). There are lots of hand knit patterns on there.
So that's my first Christmas countdown. As well planned as I sound I have no idea what I am going to do next week. Hopefully you will like whatever I choose and I do have some ideas flying around my head. Let me know if you decide to make anything from this list. Would love to see it.
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