Homemade Stockings and Owl Ornament

More handmade Christmas from resurrected tshirts, yarn, and embroidery floss. This was my first time making stockings. My mom made us quite a few growing up. My very favorite being Snoopy. It was made of faux fur and had a floppy ear.
For fun, I thought I'd make mine different on each side so we can change it up from year to year. One side matches this years tree decor with bright colors. The other side is more Christmasy with just red, green, and white.




The tshirt I used for the toe and heal of the stockings is the same tshirt I used for this little owl. (Actually this shirt also made it onto the hoodie too.) I used 3 of the same yarns that we used on the other ornaments so they coordinate. He was completely hand stitched....and during the lunar eclipse non the less :). A fun little memory to go with him. And I have to admit....he is my favorite. He turned out just as cute as I had imagined him to be.

To 2010!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and a happy, healthy year! May it continue!

Custom designed Hoodie

Last Christmas, I gave Nick an IOU to make him a custom hoodie. Maybe 9 mths ago, I presented him with some different designs and he choose this one. (Just thought I'd mention that it didn't take me 9mths to finish. I spent the last week before this Christmas on it.)

Primarily monochromatic.... green.
Geometric shapes.
Patch worked together.
Rough edges.
Not 'cute'

Going off my original sketch, I drew it to size. Then started piecing it all together until the puzzle was finished.



My thoughts are... the sleeves and pockets were a pain in the ass. And I went through 2 whole spoons of thread. Besides that, I think it turned out pretty well.

Nick's response... he loves it! Which makes me so relieved.

ok, now you can see how cute he looks in it :)

this is a silly one that i like =) im thinkin it's his Rocky impersonation.

Christmas Projects revealed

I have a few projects to share with you. I have been busy busy the last 2 weeks. My sewing machine has never gotten so much action before. For my nephews, I made sleeve monkeys. (the cousin to sock monkeys) I made Nick a custom designed hoodie and an ornament, plus a stocking for each of us.

SLEEVE MONKEYS

One of the sleeves. The material I cut off between their legs was used to make their arms.

Monkey pieces

body stuffed with balls of yarn. now i know that real stuffing looks a lot different.

hand-stitched eyes

monkey parts :)

Skinny body before it was stuffed.

Over-stuffed body. I opened him back up and took out some of the stuffing later...plus added a belly button :) and a little more rounded head.

Finished Yellow E monkey

Finished Blue A monkey

Butt tats

They turned out a little more "monster monkey" like... actually they remind me of a stuffed cow I had as a child. He had a tongue that stuck out too and I called him Cow Lick. :)

They other projects are coming up in separate posts.

Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. It was very white, but a wonderfully sunny day here in Tahoe. We stayed in bed late, made ham/egg 'n cheese crepes and mango yogurt crepes, listened to some Christmas tunes, opened our gifts under the tree, received calls from family, and spent the evening with friends...playing games and eating a ton of yummy food (my favorite being the from-scratch sausage stuffing and mashed sweet potatoes).


This is my favorite gift! Not just any ol' hat, oh no. This is a special hat with head phones built in. So I can listen to my new mp3 player without having to use ear buds. Ear buds are so uncomfortable for me...and someone remembered that ;)
I also received a webcam so I can finally use skype. And likely make some video posts too.

Christmas Tree

Last Sunday, we drove to some public land to find and cut down our Christmas tree. A first for me!! I was imaging that we were going up into the mountains and there was going to be lots of snow and it was going to be cold. I dressed all warm in layers and my snow boots and was surprised to find ourselves here ..............

in the desert really

plus we were in the middle of a warm front so it was nice and warm and very enjoyable searching for the perfect little tree

here's the cute little guy we picked

cut down

and took home

With decorations back in Kansas, we stopped at Michael's and got some cool LED ball lights, some colorful mini bulbs, and 2 (we needed more, but it wasn't on sale so we stretched 2) rolls of colorful ribbon. The bulbs are orange, green, blue, and dark pink. They didn't have any hooks so instead we braided different colors of yarn together. They turned out pretty cute. We picked out 2 different ribbons for the garland. One is white with red polka dots and the other is orange with darker orange polka dots. I have never had a 'designed' tree with no sentimental ornaments on it. It's quite refreshing actually. Clean. Oh, and we picked up the 'tree skirt' from the Goodwill. 2 pretty orange table clothes.







And always my favorite.... all light up!

Perfect day for Projects

It's snowing today. Supposedly, we are going to get 3-6 feet by Sunday. A perfect day to stay in and work on projects. I have been spending a lot of time in my little studio space. I know I know, I still need to post pictures. I need to stop and clean up between projects to get good pics. But here are a couple showing me deep in projects.


After Christmas, I'll post pics of the actual project creations themselves. (hint: I've accomplished 1 more of my 31 before 32 goals.)

Wild Hair Wednesday

For one of my recent photoshoots, I decided to tidy up my crazy dreads by braiding them into pigtails.


After the shoot, it occurred to me that I could curl them up (with just my hand not an iron).... aaaand they stay.



I left them like this the rest of the day :)
I think I know what I'm going to be for Halloween next year.

Media Monday - Haircut 100

Home Tour

Two weeks ago, we moved into a cute 2 bedroom home. Before we even brought in our bags, I ran around the house real quick and snapped all these photos. So here's a quick tour of the new place.

mudroom

kitchen

dining area (viewed from the stairs)



view from the deck



living room

master bedroom (also has a great Eastern view of the Valley)

office nook off the master



this is an awful picture, but this shows how crammed the second bedroom was. this room is now my studio and it has a little nook off of it too.

I have moved my stuff into the studio and have been workin away. I have taken some 'in-between' photos, but haven't taken any 'after' ones. I have projects everywhere so I'll either just take pictures of the mess and you can see it in full functioning mode or I'll figure out a better way to display bags and bags of yarn.