Christmas Stockings and Patterns

Only 17 more craft days until Christmas! Not much time left to get those handmade gifts completed for your friends and loved ones. This year I also need to think about Teacher Gifts – I need 11 of them! I was planning to make each teacher one of these little stockings and put a gift card and some candy inside, but it’s time for me to admit that I need to go to plan B. Right now I have 4 stockings and I won’t have time to make the other 7 before my son starts vacation.

No worries though, I do have a back up plan, but it involves buying it from the store (gasp!). However, I did want to share this stocking with you as I think they make very cute gifts and can also be hung on the tree. These stockings are great stash-busters and best of all, the pattern is free.

If you need a larger stocking, you can download this free pattern from the McCall’s website (but you have to join their mailing list first). I made a few of these last year and they are also cute. This pattern is nice because it is simple and you can get creative with the embellishments.

I am already thinking about Keep It Thimble’s plans for next year and hope to have some new features to roll out next year. More on this in a few weeks.

Keep it Thimble!

Christmas All Through the House

It’s official, we are ready for Christmas. The decorations are hung inside and out. A little bit more shopping to do and then I will be ready! My son contributed to the decorating as well by putting a wreath on his friend “Wickid Jack” (his spelling of “wicked”).

wickedjack — Wickid Jack's Christmas Hair

This year we have two trees – a traditional green one in the front window and a white and blue one in the den. When we got married, my husband started a tradition of having a white tree with a different color each year. We’ve repeated some colors, but so far we’ve had blue, black, purple, and pink. Next year I think we should do red!

In the entryway the little elves are ready to help Santa for Christmas. By the fireplace, a snowman is ready for a snowball fight (although my son pointed out that snowballs aren’t usually blue).

Santa is perched on some antique quilts, next to a basket of gingerbread men!

An antique grain scoop is the perfect place for some holiday foliage! This will be hung on the wall tomorrow – after I get the nails from the garage.

Last but not least, the fireplace holds lots of little Santas and Snowmen. Most of the items here were made by me – can you guess which ones?

Keep it thimble!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween! I really enjoyed eating all of my son’s candy, and look forward to sneaking more of it now that he is in bed. We had a pretty rainy Halloween this year, so we ended up going to the mall for the main trick or treating. Everyone did a double talk when they saw this mini-reaper walking amongst them.

The Grim Reaper is ready for your candy!

I didn’t get a picture (wish I had been faster), but there was one little girl (probably around 2) dressed up like a flower princess and she was quite taken with my son’s costume. She kept smiling and laughing and wanted to come up and see his costume close-up. She wasn’t scared at all!

Even the Grim Reaper is not above the seatbelt law!

This year’s costume was fairly easy to make, but I finished it at 3:30pm today – just in time to go get the candy. I made his creepy black robe, and of course we bought the mask at the store. He was really pleased with his costume and how scary he looked!

Keep it thimble!

Trick or Treat Bag – Free Pattern

Halloween is a week away and I still need to make my son’s costume. He is going as the Grim Reaper. He has no idea what the Grim Reaper does, but he assures me he will be a “nice” one. I am going to call him the “Grin Reaper” :).

The costume is basically a black robe with a hood. We will paint his face to look like a skull and he has a kid’s size scythe he will be carrying (to be honest, the scythe was the selling point of the costume for him).

In the sprit of the season I wanted to remind you that I have a free pattern available for a trick or treat bag. It’s pretty simple to make, and it makes a nice tote back if you do it in different colors.

You can download the pattern by clicking HERE.

Keep it Thimble!

Halloween is Coming!

This week, in the midst of all the preparation for the porch sale, I received a visit from the Great Pumpkin and his friends (courtesy of the little ghost in the burgundy blanket).

I was also able to get some Halloween decorating done in the house. I will post more pictures later, but here is what the mantel looks like.

Keep it Thimble!

Sneak Peek

It’s a busy week as I get ready for the Porch Sale on Oct 14th. Here are a few sneak peeks – as you can see there is still a bit of work to be done!

I also got this steam press today. I used one of these a long time ago in a class and found it is wonderful for ironing interfacing onto fabric and saves so much time! Since I am making things in bulk, I need to find ways to save time.

Keep it thimble!

Porch Sale in the Barn – October 14 and 15

Only two more weeks until the second annual Porch Sale in the Barn! It will be at the Little Herb House on Holland Church Rd in Raleigh, NC on Oct 14th and 15th. Doors are open from 8am – 5pm on both days.

I participated in this sale last year and it was a lot of fun. It will be much larger this year since we have more space and more vendors will be participating. I am in the midst of getting my stuff together for this year’s sale and I hope to put some teasers on the blog in the coming weeks. Just to whet your appetite, here are some pictures from last year’s sale.

I hope to see you there.

Keep it Thimble!

Happy Fourth!

Hope everyone has a great Fourth! The weather is beautiful and we are heading off to the big parade in downtown Apex. The kids decorate their bikes, wagons, baby strollers, and march down main street waving flags and cheering! At the end of the parade, the fire station has a firetruck set up to spray water on the kids so they can cool off. Should be a lot of fun.

There are some fun little wool flags made from a pattern by Debbie Busby 0f Wooden Spool Designs. A vintage flower frog holds the flags quite nicely. The sticks will be painted black and maybe a bow will be tied around some of the sticks. I thought this would be a fairly quick project, but there is a lot of hand stitching involved, so it took a few hours to complete all 5. They are small enough to carry around in your purse if you want to work on something for a few minutes while you are waiting.

Keep it thimble!

Solar System Party!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted – time gets away too quickly! This weekend my son had a solar system birthday party. You may recall that he had a “space” party last year at this time, but in his mind “solar system” and “space” are different somehow.

For the favors this year, I made the kids zippered pencil cases. They can use them to carry school supplies and other little treasures. There was a bunch of rocketship and planet fabric left over from last year (since I didn’t have time to make anything except an apron). The zippered cases are fast and easy to make and hopefully I will get a tutorial posted on them in the next few weeks.

The zipper pulls were some space themed charms from Oriental Trading Company. They are attached to the zippers with some lanyard hooks from Wal-mart (found in the children’s craft section). In addition to the charms, I bought a whole bunch of space things from Oriental Trading Company – it was basically like a solar system party in a box.

If spend about $50 on one of the value party packs (they have many different themes) you can get everything you need! The “space” party theme included an inflatable solar system, cup/plates/napkins, 3 craft projects, 3 party favor items, and cardboard decorations of space things. All in all a good deal and a huge hit with the elementary school crowd.

My son had a great time and was so happy with the favors I made for his friends. He made me a special note with his drawing tablet to thank me! I love the fancy lettering he used.

Keep it thimble!