I have casually been sneaking into my not-quite-set-up-yet sewing/craft room for a few small sewing adventures…10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, as I can manage it. Some projects will need to wait to be shared with you until after Christmas…shh! For now, though, some gloves are getting repaired, a crocheted blanket is getting mended from a false cut made with Nathan’s scissors (oops!), and a Christmas Tradition in our family was calling my name to get finished up. A stocking for James.
With Babe on my lap, I pull out the semi-blank stocking that I (thankfully) made many, many years ago. We had given our pets some stocking way back and had extra, all to match. It was a Simplicity pattern I had borrowed (and apparently kept, sorry Amy) from my sister to make the stockings.
Some calico material for the socks, batting for the inside, and linen for the fold-over at the top. Amazingly, I had some gold embroidery floss already to get the job finished.
With only my right hand free, I drew James’ name on the stocking with my disappearing marking pen in a style I liked.
I then started on the embroidery with a very simple hand stitch. I just followed my pen marks and overlapped each stitch by half.
And, it went pretty quickly. And with so little time these days on my hands (or, hands-free) it was nice to have a satisfactory quick project completed..and in time (not that I intend to put anything in his stocking, but its the thought that counts I’m hoping on here).
What I like most about our stockings, is that all our stockings are similar, but each unique. I embroidered each name on over the years in a different style, which still suits my style just right.
Do any of you have multiple sets of stockings? We have three (four sets if you had asked me a month ago). These, above, are the ones I generally use, extended family traditional ones made by my aunt, and camouflage ones that Steven brought home from his tour in Afghanistan a year and a half ago. I guess we need more trees around the house to display multiple stockings??? Hmm….maybe next year.
Have a VERY Merry Christmas!
