Embroidered Pillowcases

I have been thinking about our sunroom about to be built. We had to take out a loan to pay for it, so that means that I will be curtailing my spending alot. What that means is that I won't spend any money for anything unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm not complaining, though, because my sewing room is full of projects. I have enough yarn and other projects to keep me busy for the next 5 years, probably.

Then I started to think about Christmas and how much we usually spend. We don't spend a huge amount, but with the number of people in Eddie's family it could get expensive, and has in the past. So, I make alot of things to give as gifts. In fact, over the past few months, I have already bought several pair of pillowcases that I plan to embroider and give as gifts to his sisters, and his mom. I would be thrilled to receive a gift that had been hand embroidered by someone, so I hope they will feel the same way and not feel slighted because I didn't buy them a store bought gift. I think most people appreciate hand made things, but everyone is different.

Right now I'm trying to finish as many pillowcases as I can before I start knitting the sweater that my knitting guild is going to knit this fall. Actually, I'm kind of discouraged about that. The yarn I bought for the sweater is Cotton Twist by Berroco. I love the yarn and the color I chose. The gauge is very close to the gauge the pattern calls for. I knitted a swatch for the gauge with 3 different sizes of needles, and the largest size is the correct gauge, but I don't like the texture of the swatch knitted with that needle. It seems too loose to me and is not closely knit. I like the next smallest needle. So, I have decided that maybe I will use the smaller needle and use the next largest size in the sweater in order to make it large enough. I can't believe that the thought actually went through my mind that I wouldn't even make the sweater at all because of being discouraged about the gauge. I have already bought the yarn for the sweater and I can't go buy more different yarn, so I will have to make do with what I have.

I'm at work now, but when I get home I will try to post pictures of the embroidered pillowcases and also the swatches that I knit for the sweater.

Sock Monkey Pictures

I have been a little out of pocket the last few days. My aunt passed away yesterday afternoon and the funeral is tomorrow. But, today I decided to take a picture of the progress, so far, of my sock monkey stocking. I think it's coming along pretty well, even though I thought it looked pretty big. When I took the picture it didn't look too big. I used the size needles the pattern calls for. I couldn't find the yarn the pattern calls for at my yarn shop and I didn't want to have to order off the Internet and pay shipping, so I bought Plymouth Encore in a Red, a sort of offwhite (not bright white), and a heathered beige that seemed close to the sock monkey body. It was the closest the yarn store had, anyway. The color numbers are 1886, 148, and 1415 and I bought one skein of each. I can't tell you which numbers go with which colors because I have already taken the labels off and gotten them mixed up.


Sock Monkey2 

The picture below is from the Christmas Stockings book and is what the stocking is supposed to look like when I finish. I hope it resembles it in some small way. Knitting it right now is really helping me to get through this funeral business.


Sock Monkey Stocking 

Sock Monkey Ornament

I was in the Cracker Barrel the other day looking at their Christmas ornaments, and I found this cute Sock Monkey ornament for $2.99. I'm almost positive I saw the exact same ornament on eBay for $12.99. Cracker Barrel has some really cute ornaments and the prices are very reasonable.


Sock Monkey Ornament 

I started thinking about other sock monkey things I might be able to find. Then I remembered awhile back that Willa from Knitting Zen had knitted a Sock Monkey Stocking from the Christmas Stocking book. I thought maybe I would try to knit one too, so I went to my local yarn store and bought the yarn. I couldn't find any wool in the colors that I needed, but I did find some great colors in Plymouth Encore, which is a wool/acrylic blend. I'll post some pictures really soon.