Christmas Stockings

The elephant in this stocking discussion is that I bought a wool needlepoint stocking kit – where the design is painted on the fabric, so it shouldn’t be hard to stitch, but I’ve hardly done any of it. Oh . . did I say that I bought this when Chad was born and it was to be his Christmas stocking and he’ll soon be 36? So, why did I buy more stockings?

My thinking is this: I would like for at least Chad, Nicole and Addie to have stockings I stitched. To get a similar kit would be over $500 each and then I don’t know that I can finish the needlepoint canvas myself so that might be an added expense.

The Shepherd’s Bush stockings are do-able and after watching Vonna’s finishing video, I know I can do those myself.

But, what really started this was an email from my friend, Teri. When an email starts off like this, I should know it means trouble:

Judy,
I know you don’t want to hear this, but have you seen Shepards Bush Christmas stockings….

That email arrived on May 14. The Shepherd’s Bush stocking kits arrived today. Need I say more?

The bottom left is Hector, which I’m thinking might work for Chad because it has deer. The bottom right is Martha. Off to the right side is Anna. Top left is Sadie. Top right is Slater. My plan is to stitch all three of the girl stockings (not fully finish – just the stitching) and let Addie choose which one she wants, which one she wants for Nicole and I’ll take the other one. At that point, after seeing three stitched, she should be able to look at the two boy charts and decide which one she wants for Chad. Then I’ll stitch the last two and then I’ll put them all together. My plan is to not do the sewing til I have all the stitching done.

I could be very wrong . . I usually am . . but these are stitched on 18 count perle cotton #5 and even with lots of color changes and charms/buttons/decorations, these should go fairly quickly. My goal is to have them all completely finished and ready for using by Christmas, 2025.

I placed the order for the five charts, linen for all five and the charm packs. Then, the thought hit me – these probably don’t use regular DMC floss so I called back and asked if they would add the floss packs for all the charts. Then I thought . . how much is all this going to cost. I asked the lady . . I’m not spending $1,000, am I? She laughed and said “Almost”. She told me that with the floss, the fabric, the charms and the chart, on average, the stockings run about $100 each. I said “Just send me floss for two of them – any two . . I don’t care.”

Today, the package arrived and I thought . . get it while you can. Who knows if a year from now we’ll even be able to get the floss. And, if I’m going to stitch them, I doubt it will cost any less to order the floss later so I went ahead and ordered floss for the other three.

Thank goodness they sent me a few needles. I hadn’t thought of that and I doubt I had any that could handle perle cotton. Oscar has taken over the ottoman. He loves it. When Vince comes downstairs, Oscar will sit with him for a while but “sit” is more like chew and scratch and aggravate Vince til Vince makes him get down. As it gets later in the evening, Oscar is going to sleep wherever that pink blanket is. It was my blanket but now I guess it’s his.

I’m planning on starting the first one in July and I think I’m going to save the last five days of each month for stitching on a Shepherd’s Bush stocking. If anyone wants to stitch with me – whether it’s a new start, a WIP or even on any other Christmas project, the 26-30 of each month, beginning in July . . that’s what I’ll be working on.

My biggest challenge is going to be keeping up with all this. I think I’m going to designate (or maybe make) a bag for Shepherd’s Bush and keep everything in there. Then make another one for whatever the current project is and keep just the working copy of that chart and the floss in that bag. Wish me luck with not losing all this 100 times before I get it finished. Surprisingly, I do have the first stocking I started for Chad. How on earth have I kept up with it for 35+ years?