Santa Claus is coming tonight....

 ...at our house, anyway.

We have always done Christmas under our tree at an odd time; when the kids were growing up, it was always New Year's Day.  We were typically at grandparents' on Christmas Day itself, so we just made use of the whole 12 days of Christmas thing and had our traditional Christmas on January 1.  

I thought that would be a good preparation for the inevitable day when we had kids who needed to visit inlaws on Dec. 25; we could do our celebrating later on and it wouldn't feel like we were changing tradition.  Much, anyway.  Now, with kids who live out of state and have to be back to work on January 2, New Year's Day doesn't work for celebrating anymore...they need travel time.  But, no matter, we have almost a whole week to work with; this year we are gathering on the 28th.

And we needed three new stockings this year...two weddings and a new baby meant I needed to get crafting again. I have posted before about making stockings to match the original set we got in 1985, but this year was different because one of the stockings had NOTHING for me to trace/ copy...I was on my own.

And I realized I don't have a moniker for the newest grandson, the Little Prince's Little Brother.  I'm going to have to puzzle on that one for a bit; he's a corker of a kid at 10 months already.  But, meantime, his was the easiest since it was just another Teddy Bear stocking...and I'd already made two of those. 

I was a bit perplexed over the Dancer's stocking...she's The Artist's new wife...but when I took a really good look at his stocking I realized it wasn't going to be any harder to replicate than the teddy bears.  I just tweaked it a little...giving her horse blonde mane and tail and batty eyelashes, lol.

 But the Actor's stocking was the Jolly Old Elf himself...so his Little Redheaded Girl needed a legit Mrs. Claus on her stocking and I was stumped.

I took an applique pattern I'd used before to make stockings for my inlaws and also for My Sweet Babboo and me...Snowman/Snowlady...and adapted the Snowlady pattern but I wasn't happy with it.  I did the other two first while I stewed about Mrs Claus.  Last week, as I was finishing up the blonde rocking horse, The Princess was over looking at my handwork and I lamented to her about my lack of inspiration for the last one.  So she did what I should have done...hit up Pinterest and found a felt applique (for sale, of course, not a pattern).  It was quite different from my snowlady adaptation and I wasn't sure I was up to it, but she sent me the link to the picture just the same.

When I fnally couldn't put it off any longer, I pulled up the pinterest picture and decided it was worth a shot.

I think it turned out looking better than the modified snow lady would have...but it's still far from perfect.  I had problems with the sewing order...the arms  are UNDER the dress bodice but ON TOP OF the apron.  And, yes, I messed it up and had to do a plan B but if I don't tell you what I did you probably can't tell, lol.

It'll do.  If they have any kids, I will find a pattern for applique elves, lol.

So, here are the three stockings I made, pretty much since the first of the month, lol.  Nothing like waiting till the last minute...again...

And I kept the stockings out of storage last year so I could work on them before the last minute...oy, the best laid plans...Then, I had a minor accident with the Actor's stocking and an uncapped marker...sigh.  I managed to get the spot, which is fortunately on the back side, down to a rather large shadowy spot, but I'm not posting that, lol.

As a note, this year I actually noticed a manufacturer's tag in the stockings.  Facepalm; I hadn't paid any attention to it at all in the past.  They were made by Russ; I did a quick google search and actually found Ebay listings for the three original stockings ...Used Santa and Teddy Bears, selling for about $8 each, and New Rocking Horses (3 of those!). Selling for about $16 each.  So they are not particularly valuable collector's items, lol.

The Flute Player chuckled that I had no idea what I was getting myself into when we got those first three stockings...

ETA...and here's a picture of the whole lot of them with their stockings.  Prince Charming's is just barely visible behind the Princess....

Left to right: The Little Redhaired Girl (who is married to) The Actor: The Flute Player and her hubby The Jokester; The Artist and his wife The Dancer; The Little Prince, Prince Charming, The Princess and ...The Little Prince's Little Brother, who shall have a nickname before long....

A Wee bit of overdue Christmas Sewing...

 Like, you know, a year overdue.

You will remember that The Flute Player got married this summer.  Which doesn't seem to have much to do with Christmas, but her hubby (henceforth called The Jokester, because he is freaking hilarious) being added to the family and all means that he needed a Christmas Stocking.

And, wow,  went to link last year's post about Christmas stockings and discovered I never wrote it.  So this is an overdue post about overdue stockings.  Rewind to a year ago....

So, last year,  we added Grandson number 1 (Guess I'm going to refer to him as The Little Prince) to the family, and of course, he needed a stocking.  I'd already made a stocking for his dad, Prince Charming, back when he joined the family, so I knew what I needed to do...just make the same little applique'd teddy bear in a different color way.    

And, I decided I'd make a stocking for The Flute Player's betrothed as well, and wrap it up and give it to him as a Christmas present.  The Flute Player's stocking was the first one I created, based on the three stockings that her siblings had that we'd purchased in a Christmas pop up shop just before her oldest sibling was born.  Back then, the three stockings were for the Princess, My Sweet Babboo, and me, but we had kinda repurposed mine and my hubby's for the other two kids as they came along.  

 (The Originals, purchased at the pop up shop in 1985) - 

But we had nothing for the Flute Player the year she arrived,  and there was no going back to the shop that popped up eleven years earlier so I used a design from an applique' pattern book I had and made her a little girl mouse stocking:

 

But now, almost a quarter of a century later,  I needed to make some more.  I had a box of Christmas related fabric somewhere but I couldn't find it...so I snagged some other green and red and dug through some scraps and made up another teddy bear applique'd red stocking and the partner boy mouse applique on green.

However...I discovered when I actually pulled the stored stockings out...I'd used the wrong stocking pattern.  I had made an oversized one for My Sweet Babboo's parents stockings years ago and that, apparently, was the one I used for the new ones.  About 20% bigger than the rest.

No problem...I'll just trace off a new pattern from an older stocking and recut therm, right?

The Little Prince's stocking came out ok...even though the applique looked a little smaller, that really wasn't a problem.

The Jokester's mouse was a wee bit off center on the oversized stocking; I thought I could finagle it when I recut it and get it better centered.

Only somehow I goofed and it ended up MORE off centered.

 

Devastation.  I did such a good job embroidering that little guy; I was heartsick.  I showed it to The Flute Player, who did her best to tell me, in a nice way, that it wouldn't work.  But I knew it anyway.  For most guys...yeah, they wouldn't even notice.  But The Jokester is a graphic artist/ animator.  He would notice.  And it would bug him.

So I rolled it up and put it away to deal with later because I was out of time and we didn't really NEED it last year.

But I didn't want to deal with it and all I got done over then next 11ish months was to unpick the seam joining the red cuff to the green body. But I did find the missing box of Christmas fabric...including the green canvas that the Flute Player's stocking had been cut from.  

I kinda thought I'd just cut the little mouse guy out and then applique the whole little thing onto the green canvas replacement.  But I put it off and put it off and suddenly it was Dec 18th and I HAD TO FACE IT.

And the green on the off-center stocking was a terrible clash with the green canvas that I was going to make the replacement out of.

So I took a deep breath, dug out the applique' pattern book, and made a whole new guy mousie.

Who isn't as good as the off-centered one but ...at least he's not unbalanced, either, lol.

And they do look kinda cute together.

 Not sure what I'm going to do with the off-center mouse...but I will think of something.

A Stocking for Prince Charming

Twenty-six years ago, My Sweet Baboo and my large pregnant self made the trip to family in  Northern Indiana for a baby shower to welcome our soon-to-arrive firstborn.  Driving 8 hours at 36 weeks meant that we stopped at every mall along I - 65 so I could walk around a bit.

At one (on the north side of Nashville near Goodlettesville...can't remember the name off hand), there was a shop with cool appliqued stockings.  We decided we'd get some, since we weren't going to go to our parents' for Christmas that year (the baby was due Jan 3).  I selected a stocking w/ Santa, MSB picked a rocking horse and, even though we didn't expect the baby before Christmas, we picked one for him/her anyway.

Back in the day, routine ultrasounds were not done and we did not know the gender of the imminent arrival, so we got a gender-neutral teddy bear.

Of course, the Princess showed up two weeks early, so we were glad to have a stocking for her.  However, we neglected to imagine having MORE kids at that point, as other kids came along we adults relinquished our stockings to them...The Artist got the rocking horse, and The Actor got my Santa stocking.

At some point, I made a pattern from  the stockings and made Mr and Mrs Snowmen stockings for My Sweet Baboo and me , and, when The Flute Player came along, I made a stocking for her with a little girl mouse on the front.

We were all set at that point.

Until this year, when we added a son-in-law to the mix.  I thought I would just buy a stocking somewhat similar to ours, but I couldn't find anything that didn't look...tacky.

Then I found out that the Princess thought it would just be LOVELY if he had a teddy bear stocking like hers.  Unfortunately, my stocking pattern has been AWOL for a while.

No matter.  I retraced it last night and used odds and ends of fabric scraps and snippets of yardage in the stash and, behold, the sort-of-matching set:

I omitted the green toe and used blue accents instead of green, but it's reasonably close.  The bear really isn't pink...it's a beige velour.

Except it apparently came out a fuzz smaller.  Not sure why...unless it's just not lying quite as flat as the quarter-century old stocking.

The Flute Player's comment: "Well, you messed up his mouth, but he's still cute."

It'll do, anyway.  At least it looks better than what I could find retail. ;-)