When I was a kid, my Christmas stocking was one of my dad's socks that was safety pinned to an arm chair. We started that same tradition when my son was born in the '70's. But at some point, I decided my first two children needed a proper stocking. I bought a McCall's pattern from the neighborhood Avon representative and a tradition began.
Since I was really into counted cross-stitch at the time, I decided to modify the Avon pattern and cross-stitch the kids' names on the cuffs using ideas from this book. I used 22 hardanger cloth to make the letters fit.
Here are my first two stockings...
Here are my first two stockings...
Then along came our last child.
And we hung three stockings for many years. Then fast forward a few years...
I continued with the 22 Hardanger for the children-in-laws but my eyes were not so keen working on the last one of those. The blurriness of the closeup is appropriate for how I was seeing this as I worked on it!
So I switched to 18 Aida with the first grandchild and modified the alphabet and little charm pictures a bit to fit seven letter names on the cuff.
I am now working on little Marina's stocking here. I am wishing this was 14 Aida but somehow I will manage!
Next year there will be another stocking on the mantel too. Life is good!
1 comment:
Those are FABULOUS!! When our first child was born we received a gift.. a stocking made by our friend's grandmother. Daughter's name was embroidered on... so I sort of copied the pattern and made one for our son who arrived later.. I crossed stitched a little teddy bear on the flap part while I was pregnant, not knowing if he would be Kevin or Stephanie. He was Kevin, which was a good thing, because I didn't have room to x-stitch in the name Stephanie. I also cross-stitched stockings for my husband and for me, but I've been getting less fancy and beautiful as the daughter-in-law and the S.O. are added to the family.... esp the S.O.. my daughter's boyfriends kept changing for many years, so I finally made the name removeable. Now I think it's permanent, but I don't dare spend time cross-stitching it in, just in case!
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