Homey for the Holidays

(I'm using homey as an adjective here...)

The holidays are in full swing around here with decorations, shopping, christmas parties, and lots of knitting of course! This is the time of year when daunting deadlines prevent sleep and I could practically start a fire from the friction of my needles.... why metal needles are often a good option. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on things, and since our family events are spread out I'm not freaking out.... yet....

Since this is our first christmas at home, and since we have a faux fireplace, I'm making our stockings. Here are the first two. The red one is Steve's and the green is mine. I'm pretty happy with how they are turning out. I'm just using basic sock style proportions and I've charted out my colorwork designs. Originally they were all going to be the same design, but (with some prompting from Steve) I decided to make them unique. It's more fun that way, right? I still have to design two smaller stockings - one for each cat. And I may have to make a third one in case we have someone visiting for christmas. This year it may be Steve's mom.

Still have to do the loops.... I'm thinking i-cord but I will welcome other suggestions.

Here are some detail shots:

We took a big road trip for the Thanksgiving weekend making stops in Covington KY, Cincinnati, and Toledo. Visiting relatives is always fun.... so is the food! Here are my four uncles with my dad and Granny.

The following weekend my mom visited us and we bought our christmas tree!

She also helped me rearrange the furniture and finish the couch cover - a 2+ year project!!! finally accomplished. If you can recall, it used to be a nauseating red country plaid.... and it looked horrible underneath Steve's large orange toned piece (my fave). So now it's a nice almondy-wheat color and the fabric is a microsanded duck canvas... very soft and durable. However, when the couch was by the windows the room seemed a bit too creamy, but this arrangement breaks up the plain areas with the orange chairs, and now the couch is across from the fireplace. Plus, everyone likes to see a tree lit up in the window, right? You will also notice our new TV!!!! - an early christmas present from ourselves and Steve's dad. It's AWESOME!!!! click on the photo to see more.

Last, but certainly not least, our tree! We only have about ten ornaments but I know we will accumulate them over the years. I also won a set of tree toppers on ebay, which should be arriving soon. We bought the tree from the guy in the lot on Sheridan Rd. We walked in a he sold us this one. I was a little skeptical to take the first tree he showed us. It looked nice but I wasn't so sure that many people used spruces for christmas trees. It's been dropping needles like crazy even though I've been making sure it has plenty of water.... next year I'm going with a frasier fir.... But I still think this one is pretty despite that there are needles everywhere. One of the cats will walk by and you will notice about fifteen tree needles littering the fur on their back... evidence? Well at least so far none of the presents have been chewed on.