Work in Progress

Yes, this is Christmas related. But as we have already discovered, I'm a little nuts and enjoy all the planning and preparation that goes into holidays. And I really did intend to make this whole thing a bit more timely, but life kind of gets in the way of these things. So consider this "Christmas in July" from me. Alas...

I have been a little bit obsessed with getting stockings for me and Jeff that match. And in perusing one of a zillion catalogs whose name I can't remember, I came across some that I LOVED that were knit. The thing that I really loved about them was that there was an advent calendar to match. But it wasn't like any advent calendar I had ever seen, because it was a garland to string across the mantle with cute little pockets for each day. Apparently this is not a new idea, but it wasn't something I had ever seen so I thought it was just the cutest thing ever.

Well, the problem with all this matching cuteness was that it was very expensive. And I forgot the name of the catalog I saw it in. And the actual catalog has been thrown out because it wasn't mine and I forgot to snatch it from my step-mom's house and that was at least 8 months ago now. And in all my online searching, I have yet to find one that I liked as well as that one (or that had stockings to match). Even Etsy wasn't helping me out this time!

Well, I considered the idea of knitting one myself. The garland itself would be easy enough to do wit the right size loom. The problem comes with the creation of the little pockets. I'm sure they aren't that hard to make, and I looked at all my options but I wasn't feeling great about any of the things I feel like I could do. Then, I found this. And it was brilliant. And all was soon to be right with the world. Except I don't have any sweaters I can sacrifice. And I really didn't want to go buy sweaters to cut them up. So I sent a plea to my friends on Facebook.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting on some sweaters. I may have to resort to hitting up the thrift store, but I'm still hopeful someone will come to my rescue with a sweater or two (hint hint!) Since it is now the opposite of sweater weather, I'm going to reserve my hunting and pestering for the fall when people start unpacking old sweaters that had been stashed for summer.

In the meantime, I have been working on the actual garland. I found a tiny loom (I actually now have two, but that's another story for another day) and some fantastic Christmas-colored yarn, so I've got a garland that's 10-12 feet long. I really should measure that...

As for the pockets? Well, I came up with another Christmas clearance find last year - mini stockings! I got them for roughly 20 cents each, so about $5 later I have all my "pockets" for my garland. This really makes things right with our world for a few reasons. The first is that we have yet to get the cute matching stockings I want us to have. So for now we have the kind of cheap fuzzy ones. And now miniature versions of those are going on my garland to hang with them. So it will all match. And we have already covered how much I like for things to match!

I've still got to make myself sit down and start measuring and attaching the stockings to the garland, but it's in the works. I also have some other liturgically-influenced crafts in the works, so stay tuned for more on those!