Back in October, as I climbed up into the shelving area of the kids' closet to get down the Halloween candy buckets and our stash of previously-purchased costumes, I noticed a small hole in the corner of one of the boxes for our Christmas decorations.
Yep, you got it. We had a mouse.
I pulled out the Halloween stuff, climbed back up into the closet and proceeded to take inventory on the amount of damage that little sucker had done.
To my dismay, what few Christmas decorations we had managed to accumulate were mostly destroyed. Glass and plastic ornaments survived unscathed, but the little vermin used our felt Christmas stockings to make a nest. There were holes everywhere.
So, after cleaning all of that mess up and making a list of what needed to be replaced, I took out my trusty H-hook, found a full skein of yarn that I knew my oldest boy would love, and I worked up a pattern for a Christmas stocking.
After several false starts, I managed to get past the toe of the stocking and work my way up. The heel took me four froggings before I got it the way I wanted it. But I was happy, and my son loved it!
Win-win for me.
So, I started in on the next one: my daughter's. She's mine, and I love her, but she can be a difficult one, so I let her go into my room and "shop" my acrylic yarns for two colors that she liked. After an hour of her deliberating and pulling every color that she liked from my stash, and then another thirty minutes of me putting everything back where it belonged with the exception of the two skeins she finally decided on, I finally got to start on her stocking.
I followed the exact same pattern that I came up with for the original stocking. Something odd happened with the heel, but I frogged it three times and I could not seem to repeat the original heel. It always came out longer on her stocking. But, alas, by the third frogging, I was literally too sick to think through the haze of fever, but I had to work on something to keep myself awake. I switched colors and continued up the leg of the sock. The heel is still a little off, but the stocking is done, and she loves it as well, so I'm calling it good.
I took two days off from crocheting to get through being sick myself and dealing with two kids still being sick, then I tackled my middle son's stocking. He was a bit harder to do colors for because he's nonverbal autistic, so he can't tell me what color he likes without picking it out himself. And when it comes to yarn, he's a bit like his mom, and he has to touch...it...all.
He stood in front of my yarn stash for a long time. He would reach out, touch one and squeeze it, then he would lean over and touch and squeeze another one. He finally settled on a tangerine orange color and a creamy white color, that same white that is in his older brother's stocking.
His took a bit longer for me to finish. The yarn he picked didn't like being crocheted. It split, it pilled, it pissed me off. But I persevered, and I finally finished it about three or four days later.
His is a little longer than the other two, but I didn't add any extra rows. I have counted like four times. No extra rows. The yarn probably had a bit more "give" to it than the yarn used in the other two. Also, the heel on his went wonky as well. He loves it, though. He keeps petting it and smiling, and I know he is excited for Christmas to come.
Another win for me.
My youngest son's stocking--let's just say that I am not happy with it, and once Christmas is over, I may take it apart and try again. I'm giving myself some time to look at it because my son loves it, but the pattern got way off somewhere, even though I counted stitches on every single row. I don't think that my gauge was that far off from the others. I'm going to chock it up to the mystery of "tension" and move forward. The heel looked a lot better this time around, but somehow, the leg part became much wider than the foot part of the stocking.
I was not high in the making of this stocking, I promise. It just went wonky.
I took several days off after this stocking, and I went back to the original stocking. I wrote down the pattern I used on the blue and white one, step by step, and I saw where I went wrong on the heels on the pink and orange stockings. As for the green and white stocking, I think the leg issue arose when I "picked up" too many stitches after I finished the heel.
Five days later, after meticulously combing over the original pattern and correcting errors that arose in the later attempts, I picked up my hook and some yarn once more. I still had to make my stocking, even if it did turn out to be the ugliest one of the lot.
And mine turned out perfectly.
Not too long in the foot or the heel, not too wide in the leg. It's perfect.
I still have to make the cats' stockings because well, the cats will be here just as long as the kids will be, and if I wrap up anything for the cats that smells like food or jingles, they will tear it open before Christmas. I also know that the kids are making them some toys, so I am going to make them some smaller stockings to shove all their presents into from the kids. Hopefully, that will keep the kittens out of them until Christmas day.
I will share the kittens' stockings when I have them done.
I hope everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving week here in the United States!
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Jessica Cauthon is an avid fiber artist and pattern designer. She’s been playing with yarn and fiber for over 25 years. She focuses mostly on knitting and crochet patterns, but she does occasionally design in other fiber arts and sell her own personal creations.
She’s also a homesteader and on a journey of self-sufficiency. She will occasionally share recipes and processes for preserving food for your pantry, along with adventures from the homestead.
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