Sew-EZ Stockings to Hang by the Chimney With Care

I love stockings filled with candy and fruit. Nowadays we add little nick-knacks and goodies galore. I've made lots of them over the years. This is the one I made for Lars our first year together - because in the Danish tradition - he never had one.


Then when we had our first child, I wanted something for him. I always loved Mary Engelbriet's patterns, "sew" I made a stocking for Jacob.

side two:

I took each of the kids to the fabric store and let them pick out fabric to make pillow cases for each other. And, Luke always loved animals 'sew' this is the fabric Jake picked for his brother and I decided to make a stocking too - since there was left over material.


Kara wanted a store-bought stocking (not pictured here because it would put my handiwork to shame) - but I made a couple more just in case she ever changed her mind:




It was my Mom who taught me to make stockings (and she never used a pattern-sew way should I?). It was a year (and there were probably lots of them) when she didn't have much money to buy presents (9 kids-no surprise they didn't have much money to spend on gifts) 'sew' she decided to make them. She pulled out the felt, and sequins and started sewing. She was up until three in the morning putting little handcrafted cutouts on the socks. If you look close you'll see the blue jingle bell hanging on the toe.

I still have that stocking she made for me, more than forty years ago. And I hang it up every year (using a little more of that care than with these newby socks that I've made).

I didn't always find much inside that stocking, sometimes only a piece of fruit and hard candy (but there was always a candy cane). By today's standards, our Christmas presents were meager but I've always loved that stocking and especially the memories it brings back every year.


(If you want to make a stocking, just sketch out the look of what you want on newspaper, cut it out and use it as your "pattern" - it's sew EZ.)