Christmas Stockings

I've been meaning to post a picture of our Christmas stockings ever since I finished Aaron's earlier this month. Here they are! From left to right: Brad's, mine, Sarah's, Chloe's, Kyle's and Aaron's. I've made all of them except for mine.

My mom made my stocking for me back when I was little. I've always loved it. My sister and I used to "debate" every year who had the best stocking. Her's had a child in bed sleeping underneath a dream cloud that was filled with candy. ("...while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.") Our "debates" usually came down to who had the most sequins. We tried several times to count them. I'm pretty sure that hers has the most, but I never would have admitted it at the time!

After Brad and I were married I wanted to make him a stocking that had sequins too. This was the least cheesy one that I could find. It turned out well, but it was a lot of work. It made me appreciate even more the ones my mom had made for me and my younger siblings! (My grandma made my older brother's stocking, as well as our tree skirt.)

I had intended to make sequined stockings for all of our kids. But when Sarah was a baby I could only find one (!) other stocking that I liked. I was pretty sure that we would have 4 or 5 kids and so I wanted to buy several. I ended up finding a cute kit and two others that went with it.

Sarah's stocking has a bear on it. I can't remember why I chose the bear one for her. I just remember thinking that she would like it.

Chloe's stocking, of course, came next. At this point, I remember that of the two remaining kits, I liked the Santa one better. So Chloe got Santa. I remember worrying about what would happen if we only had the girls and Sarah felt bad about being the only family member without Santa on her stocking. (I know, I'm weird. But this is the girl who used to count sequins with her sister, remember?) Luckily, that hasn't been an issue. I've always liked Chloe's stocking because it doesn't have a fat Santa. Not that I have anything against fat Santas. I just like that this one is a little different.

Then came Kyle. By the time his first Christmas came around I'd forgotten what the pattern was for the remaining stocking was, other than it was a snowman. I was not happy when I pulled it out and found a big, ugly snowman head with a hideous purple bow tie! I couldn't believe I had even purchased it! What had I been thinking! I really wanted the kids' stockings to coordinate though. My only solution was to used the felt provided (so the colors would match) and redesign the pattern. I'm happy with the way it turned out. One of my favorite things on his stocking is the holly. Why? I don't know. I just like it. Maybe it's all the patterns of 3. My other favorite is his face. I like the little sideways smile. :)

Last, but not least we've got Aaron's. I've been thinking about his stocking since last year. I debated making it last year since we didn't know if he would be born before or after Christmas. But I decided that even if he came before Christmas, he would be okay without a stocking. (Plus it was one less thing for me to do before he was born and Christmas!) I did, however, decide that I wanted to make one for him that either had a reindeer or a penguin. After saving several pictures of stockings out of catalogs for inspiration I settled on a penguin. Then I bought the felt hoping that I could match the colors close enough to the other three stockings. I also wanted it to have some of the same elements as the other stockings. A set of three, something purple, something red and white striped, small eyes, a star, etc. When I finally got around to sitting down and sketching out the pattern it took me most of an evening. Thank goodness for erasers! As I was making it I decided to flip the candy cane around in the opposite direction. But of course I had already sewn the red pieces onto the white, so I had to unstitch and do it over. I'm really happy with how it turned out though! So there you have it. The story of our stockings. I hope that my kids love their stockings as much as I've loved mine! (Thanks Mom!)