The stockings are hung! Not above the woodstove, for that would be quite the fire hazard (and where would I dry our wet mittens?), but on the staircase with care, where we walk by them many times a day, where little things are hidden in them by little hands, and where there is room enough for them all.
Annabel's - finished just last night - was made with a bit of cross stitched snowflakes (the patterns being from Modern Folk) on some Cashel Linen, stitched with Weeks Dye Works floss, all thanks to the Winterwoods Sampler which has me quite in love with that variegated floss. Keeping it simple after all those little stitches, I used some heavy red wool suiting I've had on hand, with some of Anna Maria's lovely Field Study in plum for the lining and hanging loop. And with that, my baby girl has her very own stocking. (A little more info on the making of Adelaide's, and Harper's. Steve, Calvin and Ezra's - which is hanging funny in all these photos, sorry - were all knit from Christmas Stockings: Holiday Treasures to Knit.)
When I made the first set of stockings - Steve and Calvin's - over a decade ago, I never imagined that the ones that followed would end up being so very different from one another (let alone imagining just how many stockings would follow!). There's some knitting, embroidery, cross stitch, vintage fabrics, quilt pieces, buttons from my grandmother...and on and on. Reflective, surely, of whatever craft I was most excited about that particular year. They're not even all facing the same way, for goodness sakes. But all is as it should be, and perhaps mirroring a bit, the abundance of activity, difference and style that exists together in this family of seven. They were most definitely all made with love, and what they represent - our family together and the holiday season we celebrate - fills me up with so much joy.
