Holiday hot cocoa ornaments

My daughter wanted to make quick Christmas gifts so this is what we did.

Supplies

*plastic ornaments
*peppermint hot cocoa
*dozens of different festive *holiday candy sprinkles

Tools
*Spoon
*funnel
*Tray

Fill ornaments 4/5 full cocoa finish with different candy sprinkles recap add curling ribbon

Note decorative do not hang with hot cocoa in it too heavy will fall and make mess...

Scissors

Santa stocking

Have been working on the Santa stocking for my cousin been in bed most the last few days.  So it is making a little bit of progress.  The one on the right is the one I am trying to match color wise. I think it is pretty close.  My tension so far is pretty close to that of the original sock I am copying.  But we will see what happens when I get to the intarsia part the color work area of the socks hanging and the Santa body.  I have not done much intarsia so in my knitting it is very much a week point for me.

 As to the color matching

• My cream is a little light in color but that could  be age of the old wool.   
• My red is a brighter red also could be age.  
• My green is more a blue green that has nothing to do with age I just had a hard time matching that color and the skin tone well I purposely made that a tiny bit darker less pink more peach also for that part since so little is used it is tapestry wool.

• The angora part the beard that is not coming out as close as I would have liked it to be.  But since the store only had one type of angora I had not a whole lot of say in that part of the yarn choices. 

Because of the intarsia color work the pieces is knit flat then joined in the round after the green section is done.

a few projects

Last night I started to knit a pair of what the author calls traditional Portuguese lace socks.  This is in the hopes they would help me to figure out the toe section I want to do on the fair-isle style  yellow and red socks that I want.    Those yellow and red socks I want to make have a stitch  count of 12 to 14 per inch.  That may not seem like much but when you look at a single square inch that equals 144 to 196 stitches which is an insane about of stitches per inch... If you then  compare that to 91.375 stitches per square inch for the lace pattern of the sock just started yep it will take 8 to 12 times longer to knit.  My kids got me sick last night or I would be further along on this.

The pattern for the lace socks can be found In Andrea wong's etsy store
 
Other projects started at my home.

I am doing cross-stitch contract work.  Two of them to be exact, they are wedding samplers.  This is for the same lady I have done all the baby announcements for in the past.

My middle daughter has started to make a few hand made books.  She is using the coptic book binding technique taught on a long time ago on my blog but she is using paper instead of fabric.  I think she is making six of these.  She has been real sick for a while so this is something she can do while in bed.

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There is also another knitting project on the horizon. This is a knitted Christmas stocking for my cousin Eric.   We as children: my 6 cousins and my older sister brother and myself grew up together at my Vova's house  ( grandmother's house).  She had the nuns in the area hand knit us all  Christmas stockings.  Some how a few years back my cousin Eric's went missing his was the second oldest grandchild stocking.   So I am borrowing my oldest cousin Kelly's sock to make a copy of it to give to Eric, this was requested by my Aunt Nonnie.  I could have just bought one on Ebay or Etsy for him for 40 some dollars that would have been the same pattern but it would have been made out of acrylic yarn.  Ours being the age they were are made in all wool.  So I will be making his so it will be made out of wool like the rest of them.  Won't be the original but it is as close as I can do.

Now to just buy the pattern and of course knit it.

P-51- Mustang

My husband is addicted to airplanes. So a little over a year ago my oldest daughter, China, did her first attempt at a cross stitch as a gift for him  She finished it about 1:30 A.M. on December 23 2016.   Just in time to give it to him for Christmas.  This is her first attempt at cross stitch so there is always room for improvement but as a first attempt not bad.  Her threads need to be neater on the back and she need to keep her work cleaner.  The easiest way to do that is not to take it on choir tour to work on it.  Just let it sit in one spot so it doesn't get messed up.  But over all I think he will like it.  She will have given it to him before this posts so yes this is posting Christmas Eve but she is giving it to him on Christmas Eve early in the evening.

And here is the back for those that like that sort of thing.  You can see if you look close her tails are too long.  Makes the back look fuzzy also when you go to mount this in a frame things like this don't let the piece lay as nicely in the frame.  As a first project it is pretty good all the same.  My first project like this was like 2 inches by 3 inches hers is 11 inches by 18 inches which is a ton more work and takes so much longer to  do.  I did my first cross stitch about the age of 12 seven years earlier than her wish i knew where mine was if I ever find it I will post it was a girl clown.  Hers is much more intricate not a beginner project mine was a beginner project 100%.  Neither of us started with stamped cross stitch both started with counted cross stitch stamped is easier it is sort of like color inside the lines but for stitching.  She added the name of the plane and her initials and the date after I suggested it I think it finishes the piece nicer to have that on there. Encase anyone wants to do this project the pattern is from A & L Designs P.O. Box 945 Pottsville PA 17901, 717/622-6102  that is from the pattern but i don't know if it still works or not. Item number SA003-B Sky Aces Series p-51-Mustang.  Sorry I don't know the publish date.  Looks like there might be a few other planes in this series a

•  Zero A6M2 
•  P- 38 - Lightning 
• Hurricane Mk-2
• P-51- Mustang ( shown in this post)
• F-4- War hawk

not sure if there is more than that.  she found the kit at a thrift shop  and thought her dad might like it.

There is also what is called a warrior series which includes

• F-III Raven
• F- 14 Tomcat
• F-15 eagle
• A-6E Intruder
• panavia tornado

Rosary

My middle daughter was making this as a gift for one of her good friends.  yes we are LDS (Mormons) but when I was a child I was catholic and still own my own child hood rosary.  This one was made by my middle daughter Starr.  She used wire to hold the beads together seed beads wood beads a cross some beads with roses on them and a few beads that came from a necklace her grandmother use to own that broke.  I think it is lovely.

Work Stuff

So UVU is putting on the production of one flew over the cuckoo's nest... This is the main nurses hospital clothes mostly finished it today still have to do the hem.

 

Recently at work we added an embroidery machine my boss is having fun testing it out... Hat she put embroidery on to say thank you to one of  my daughters for helping to wrap Christmas gifts for her.

 This is another item that was embroidered... the machine I am not use to it yet...so yep i really have not used it yet.

Some of the other machines at work ...This is the newest serger... we have three older ones home models .

This is our industrial Juki serger.  Love this machine.

Thus us our industrial bernina we have lots of these.  They do a few fancy stitches and button holes.

Our industrial Juki these sew lightning fast but only do straight stitches and back takes but the machine does cut its own thread love how the foot pedal works with this machine one of my favorite machines for just stitching.

Christmas trees

We have not set up a real big Christmas tree in years due to downsizing in homes but not possessions.  This year we got to set up two tree my kids are so excited to do this.  Both these trees are at my sister in laws house.  Which is where we will be spending this Christmas. 

 

The first one to go up my children decorated with items their great grandmother made years ago before her passing. This was an eclectic tree but full of so much love and joy for my children.  My children had fun going through the kissing balls and putting them on the tree. Kissing balls which is what my grandmother called these ornaments.  They were originally meant to hang in doorways with mistletoe on them so those passing underneath would have to kiss.

The second tree is the one my sister in law sets up upstairs.  It is a lovely tree full of gold and red more in keeping with how I like to decorate trees.  It usually takes them a week to set up Christmas but with three teens supper excited to decorate a tree took only a few hours.

knitting a shawl with beads

It snowed here in Utah over thanksgiving.  The snow and Christmas coming up made me want to knit something that reminded me of both.  So I started knitting this shawl with size 10 thread in white  and size six seed beads in red size 1 knitting needles.  I know it is not anything fancy but I just have not made anything in so long just to make something I was going a tad stir-crazy.

I hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving with family.   We celebrated a little one this year with just my immediate family.   It was nice to have food we liked and not what others liked it was quiet sweet and nice.   My youngest daughter got into the act of cooking.   She loves to cook and this was her chance.  I made the ham and she and her sisters made the rest from scratch.

In other fun stuff my middle daughter is learning the ukulele.  Her older sister is helping her to learn how

Origami boxes

My oldest daughter made origami boxes to put all her Christmas gifts in for the family.

Mine came in a rose box

my husbands came in a throwing star box

My middle daughters came in a box that looked like candy


My oldest put hers and her youngest sister in just a simple box.

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed seeing some of our gifts that we hand made for each other.The posts from here out will just be normal projects not Christmas gifts anymore.  Hope you are all having a lovely New Year.

pink and red beaded heart earrings

As of the time of this post being written ( Christmas eve yes I pre-posted for the holidays) my oldest daughter had made two sets of earring as Christmas gifts but I did not know who they were for so I will have to up date later as I do not know if they are friends gifts, sisters, or mine.

This is made out of that same set of beads she bought last year.  The earring French wires I gave her from my stash.  Who ever gets these they will be cute for Valentine's day.

Beaded yin and yang key fob

This beaded item was made by my oldest daughter for her father for Christmas.  Our kids consider their daddy and myself very much opposites I was an art major and him an engineer.  Some how our kids are a pretty good mix of the two of us.  So this is suppossed to represent both of us.

This is made with seed beads my daughter got last year to make her sister beaded bugs she still has lots of beads left over so she will be like me in that she will probably make projects from those same beads 10 years from now before they all run out.

I have not asked my daughter but a closer look at the photo and you see a hole in the piece I think one of her beads broke after she made it sort of sad but that is what happens at times.  Still a very nice piece.  I think she got the pattern for the heart off of the Internet but I do not know where so I can not tell you sorry.

beaded heart earrings black and red

This too was made by my oldest daughter it was made for my middle daughter.
 
Same beads used for the other projects she did and once again I gave her the French wires to make them earrings.  I also gave her the ring she used on the yin and yang fob.  If you look close at the first photo you can see she used wire instead of string to thread the beads onto.