Christmas Ornaments

Between one thing and another, we didn't get our tree up and decorated until a couple nights ago. But now it is all lit and decorated and festive.

Over the years, I have acquired quite the assortment of ornaments. When my sisters and I were kids, we would receive typically one new ornament each Christmas, such as these three. The first two I kind of remembering getting while I was in grade school. The third one, the elf, I've had for so long I don't remember how old I was when I got it.

Some of my oldest ornaments I must have made, possible at Sunday school. Styrofoam seems to be a popular craft item.

In the above picture is also one of my oldest ornaments, the little red horse. Here is a better angle.

It used to have a curved, gold-colored horn on its head. That fell off quite some time ago. I'm not sure why I never tried to fix it, and now I'm not sure if I even still have it. I may have to look carefully in the bottom of the box where I store my ornaments to see if it is there.

Several ornaments are made of straw, and I believe come from the Scandinavian tradition.

 

One of my favorite ornaments is this sled that my dad made out of popsicle sticks and painted silver. 

This year, for the first time, I put up some ornaments that came from my mom. I remember a few of them from when I was young. As I recall, I wasn't allowed to touch them because they were so fragile, such as this glass horn.

Quite a few ornaments were gifts from various people over the years. This bird is the first ornament I can remember being given by someone who was not a member of my family.

Her name was Tina Caloroso. She was in my Camp Fire Girl troop when I was in fifth or sixth grade. She was a student at my school, but she was in the class for hard-of-hearing kids. Whenever I hang that ornament, I wonder about her — where she is, what she's doing.

'Tis the Season

Some time ago, I made up a number of small foundation-pieced blocks, from patterns from a book called Paper Piece a Merry Christmas. I don't recall what prompted me to make these blocks or what I intended to do with them. But about a week ago, I was rummaging around in my studio and came across them.

Having a fair amount of free time right now, what with being on school break, I pulled out some ribbon and leftover batting, and whipped up about 10 or 12 two-sided Christmas ornaments.

 

  

It appears, however, that sometime ago I disposed of the book, quite possibly when we moved in 2009. This is not the first time, nor probably the last, when I will go looking for a book (quilting or otherwise) and discover that it is no longer in my collection.

I looked in the online catalogs of the nearby library systems, to no avail. I did succeed in finding it listed with a couple of library systems a little farther away. One of them is the Kitsap library system, which has a copy at its Bremerton branch. And, wouldn't you know it, I was just in Bremerton two days ago!

Christmas

We put up our wreath on our front door on December 1. It always goes up early in December; for the last several years, we have purchased it at the Phinney Ridge Winter Festival. We've learned to bring old newspapers to lay it on in the car; the wreath is always sticky with sap.

The Christmas letter is pretty much done. I just need to print out copies.

Monday evening, we put up the tree.

One of the things I like best about December is getting out my Christmas music CDs. I have several, that I have either purchased myself or have been given to me over the years. There are two, however, that I never get tired of listening to — A Celtic Celebration, Volume One and Volume Two, by the Night Heron Consort.

I bought the first one more than 10 years ago, maybe as many as 15, at a little gift shop in downtown Woodinville. I think the shop was called From the Heart; it closed a few years ago. The second volume I ordered directly from Night Heron's web site. You can get them through Amazon now, but that hasn't always been the case.

There's just something about the arrangement of the songs, and the particular instruments, that makes them especially appealing.

Mini Sock Ornaments

This is a great way to use leftover yarn.

The photo shows several of the mini sock ornaments I've knitted over the last several months. I've been using a pattern by Stacey Trock available on Ravelry, which I modified slightly. I knit 20 rounds before I start the heel flap, instead of 13. I felt the leg of the sock needed to be longer.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

The hanger loop is a two-stitch I-cord.

I've made the pattern so many times I've nearly got it memorized. That's great, but I thought it might be time to change things up just a little. So I went looking for a mini sock pattern that called for a short-row heel. And through the magic of the interwebs, I found this.

The new pattern has a more complicated way of knitting the cuff and more stitches in the round. Essentially, I'm going to take the number of stitches (24) in Stacey's pattern, knit a regular K1P1 cuff, and rework the instructions for the short-row heel from the second pattern to fit that number.

I'll let you know how it works out!