Christmas in July

Toward the end of last year, a customer came into my LYS asking if there was anyone who could do some duplicate stitch for them. She had some beautiful old Christmas stockings which needed new names on them. I gather that these stockings are on their next generation of users. No one who works at the store had both the time and inclination to do a bunch of duplicate stitching, but the next time I was in for Knit Night, I was doing the finishing work for my 2008 Stockings, which included duplicate stitching names, and they passed the job along to me. I made arrangements to do this job after this spring's blanket knitting was done, and I left them for her when I went to Knit Night on Monday.

I'm pretty good at duplicate stitching - having made over 25 Christmas Stockings so far - and feel pretty good about how this turned out. Here is a shot of part of the lettering.

I didn't have anything in the stash that exactly matched the red used in these stockings in both color and weight, so I had to do a little bit of hunting. Caron Wintuk worsted weight in "Christmas Red 3005" fit the bill. It was a smidge too thick (perhaps just because it's new), but I think it worked out well. There were four stockings and this project took two Knit Night sessions to complete.

These stockings resemble the Mary Maxim intarsia-based stockings I usually do, but are a pattern I've never seen before and have different detailing, including the size and spacing of letters. Sample stockings were included so that I had a model for the lettering, but I largely had to work that bit out on my own. It took a little longer that way, but I thought it was a fun challenge. My favorite detail:

jingle bells on the toes.

I've worked a little bit on some more washcloths during lunch hours this week, but all my evening time has been devoted to the secret cross stitch project. I hope to post pictures of this next week. Then I'll need to buy some yarn for this year's big Christmas project as well as some socks for me. I'm going to a conference week after next --- six and a half days of presentations, work groups and discussion. I'll need to stock up on yarn and prepare some good-sized projects!