March of the Christmas Stockings

So this will be a picture heavy post today. So sorry if you are on dial-up. :-)

After I jumped in and made that Christmas Stocking just before Christmas some people asked to see the other stockings I made.

While I was up at the in-laws' I finally took pictures of them all since all of them were made pre-blog and I wasn't photographing projects back then.

Couple's stockings did not get hung together this year, which might make this a little disjointed.

You will notice that there are not names on any of the stockings. That because I don't do embroidery, nor do I own a glitter glue pen (which got a loud "Hey!" from my sister-in-law when we were at the house, since she does own glitter glue pens). Also, I figured I made the things, getting names on them is the responsibility of someone else.

The Christmas Stocking Saga started with the red and green crocheted stockings. The red one is mine and the green one is Hubby's.

The pattern is the Christmas Morning Stocking from Freepatterns.com (registration required). I'm pretty sure I used Red Heart Yarn and I seem to remember making them a bit bigger than then patter was written.

The oversized mittens are from a kit, which I thought was from Mary Maxim, but I don't see it on the website. However we are talking some time between 2001 and 2004 so maybe they've been discontinued.

I made the mittens for the brother- and sister-in-law that are usually at Christmas.

I really need to get names on these things. Every year I running around saying, "Red are girls! Green are boys!" but people still get confused. Sigh.

Finally there is the infamous Claddagh stocking, which I designed myself. I figured, "I knit socks all the time, a Christmas stocking is just a big sock." But the proportions in the foot just about killed me. You can see a more or less full length image here.

The pictures of it are really bad. I hung it on the door to the porch thinking I'd get better light, but it was not meant to be.

I think I intended this stocking to be my mother-in-law's and was going to do a thistle one for my father-in-law. Or vise versa. I don't remember. I'm just making them at this point. But this one was such a train wreck (in my mind) that I abandoned the thistle idea and when with the cabled cuff one.

Everybody thought the cabled cuff one was lovely. One sister-in-law even said people where she lives would pay for a handmade stocking like that. Which made me cringe. But they all nodded in understanding when I pointed out that this is my hobby and making them to sell would make it not fun anymore.

Then I said I only have the three nephews to go because I'm just making it for the people who come to Christmas every year.

Then she said that she'll be at Christmas from now on and she wants a pink stocking. But Hubby said she can't have a pink stocking because it's not Christmas Colors. Then he said it would have to be pink and light green. Which did not help the situation at all.

What I need to do is learn to knit in my sleep so these stockings will go faster. Alternatively, I could grow a second pair of arms/hands so I can knit while I'm doing other things.

I don't think either option is likely to occur any time soon.