christmas Archives - Threads by ionyka

Another memorable holiday traditions at our house growing up was taking a drive out to Hozak Farm (I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA) the weekend after Thanksgiving to hunt and cut down our perfect Christmas Tree. *queue opening scene from Christmas Vacation* ok so it wasn’t totally like that, but at times it was really cold and snowy, others chilly with no snow, just depended on the year. The event included a wagon ride into the tree farm to spend what seemed like forever trying to decide as a family which type of tree we wanted and which one of that type we were going to select.

Eventually we would decide and my dad would saw it down and would get it trucked back, wrapped in twine and put on the top of the car. After that we were pretty hungry so luckily the barn there is set up for great sandwiches and soups along with hot cocoa. We would bring the tree home and put it straight into the tree stand and wrap my moms quilted tree skirt around it. I found a rather old photo but you can see the skirt in it fairly well.

So again, I knew another fun holiday accessory I wanted to crochet was a new tree skirt for us to use. Since I moved out I have not always been able to have a real tree, most apartments did not allow them and I initially did not approve of fake ones. This year we may end up going the way of artificial but either way our tree will have an authentic homemade tree skirt at the very least!

I browsed a bunch of options and decided on this one called SmoothFox’s Christmas Tree Skirt. I liked it for the versatility of the stripes and the basic shape.

I used a random stripe generator I found thanks to a tip in a comment because I had 4 colors to use and wanted to mix up the colors a bit. Here is what I came up with.

I used 4 colors of Red Heart Super Save yarn so it can be easily washed if needed, and since I had a bunch left over from the stockings, it made sense to make them all match a little too.

I purposely did not make it super large yet to see how it fits with the tree we get, I can always add a few rows if I need to. Once we have a tree I will get a few pictures of it when the new skirt on. I am very pleased with how it came out, the patter was easy to follow and takes shape nicely.

Post Update: 12/21/13

We finally got our new tree up and decorated last weekend so here is a photo of the tree skirt.

When I get time, likely after the holidays, I need to add about 5 or 6 more rows to it so it is a bit wider, it barely covers the tree base right now. I did add 3 buttons to the closures so it stays closed better. I attached a chain 5 to the edge of 2 rows like a button hole and attached the button on the other side. I will get close up pictures of that once I finish adding some rows later on. I do like how it looks though!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

One of my favorite times during the holidays was decorating the house with snowmen (my mom had a huge collection of them), putting up the tree, and hanging our stockings on the banister of the stairs. My mom had sewn up one for each of the four of us in the family, and even 1 for our dog and cat. Mine had my name embroidered on it with an angel. The stockings were felt and fabric sewn together with thread. Each Christmas morning my sister and I would get up and run down to grab our stockings while we ate breakfast before opening presents. Oranges, nuts and other small trinkets were always customary for stocking stuffers are our house.

When I moved away to go to college and subsequently to Atlanta, and presently California, I did not get to enjoy my stocking unless I happen to be visiting my parents for the holiday (which was not every year unfortunately). So one of my goals when I began to learn how to crochet about a year ago was to become efficient enough to make new stockings for myself and my husband, to use as a new family, and one for Chester Cat of course too!

I decided to give this pattern by Red Heart called Holly & Berry Stockings a try because I liked the cuff part because I wanted to put our names on them. I also wanted to use the Red Heart Super Saver yarn because it will always be available if/when I need to make another one.

The pattern is easy to work up and I followed it as described except for 1 part. When I was putting together the first stocking I made, I felt that after I made the cuff and was stitching it together that the cuff part was a tad too small and I did not want a seam to show at the back of the stocking where you join the sides together. So for the remaining 2 stockings I added 2 stitches to the noted 44 they put down in the pattern. This gave me enough to work with at the back so the cuff fit snug but not too tight. Just me maybe, but I liked it with the extra stitches better.

Before I put them all together I had to learn how to stitch letters into the cuff. I had not done this before so I turned to my trusty YouTube search to find a helpful video and this is the one I used:

From that video I was able to figure out the basics and started to put the letters of our names onto the cuffs, my husbands name and the cats name are both 7 letters so I started with the middle letter and worked my way out, I did not remember to take a photo of them prior to putting them together so I took some close ups of the finished ones instead to get the idea. My name is short so I put it all on one side since that seemed to make more sense. Here is a closeup of mine to see the letters stitching.

I am thrilled with how they turned out, I hope to get many many years of holiday fun out of these stockings. Here are some more photos of the finished stockings below.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

Tag Archives: christmas

Holiday Accessories: Tree Skirt

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Holiday Accessories: Stockings

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