A Christmas stocking

I love creating things, but my creations have slowed a little lately. It is hard to be quite as prolific when most of my stuff is still packed away in boxes. It's also hard to actually get things finished when my little man has decided that sleep during the day is overrated; at the moment he is sleeping maybe a total of an hour all day. I do love spending time with him when he's awake (and, to be fair, he can entertain himself pretty well as well) but I wouldn't mind just a little more downtime...

Me with my precious distraction, writing Christmas cards together.

Anyway, in fits and starts, this project actually got done. Perhaps only because it HAD to get done. When I was young, a family friend stitched a gorgeous Christmas stocking for me.

My brother had a similar one and each year we loved opening our stockings on Christmas morning. In less than two weeks, my son - without a clue as to what's happening - will celebrate his first Christmas. And so a stocking for him was in order.

I could have made a cross-stitch stocking to go with mine, but I decided to go for a different look and made a patchwork one instead.

I looked at a few tutorials online and ended up basing it mainly on this one at Imagine Gnats. I used Kate Spain's Twelve Days of Christmas fabric line, which I love. (I have enough to make more - Mum pointed out that she had never had a stocking with her name on it so I see another project in the pipeline.) It did take a few days, only because things seem to generally take a long time with my little man around, and because I'm not sewing in my own space, so finding thread to match, pieces of batting, other bits and pieces takes a lot longer. Otherwise, it was a fairly straightforward project.

And it makes me happy to look at! Here's to my little family creating Christmas memories of our own.