christmas stocking for charlotte

Why am I looking at Christmas books in October? Well, any crafter knows that there's very little time for Christmas crafting once you get anywhere near the Christmas season itself. Let's face it, anything left undone when you hit December does not have a great chance of making the holiday. At the very least, trying to get a lot of homemade holiday stuff done after Thanksgiving is not likely to fill you with cheer.

So this year I started early. I actually got a couple of things done in February but I'll post some pictures of them later. In the last couple of weeks I started thinking about stockings.

Fifteen years ago I used the Babar book as inspiration for this Christmas stocking for Frances.

I cut all the pieces out of felt and glued them down with some ribbons to accent the presents in Babar's sack.

I embroidered the stars in the night sky with silver threads.

About five years ago I made another stocking for our friend Shelley's daughter Sophie featuring Maisy the Mouse. This is where I would show you what the Maisy stocking looked like, but it never occurred to me to take a picture of it. I'm hoping Shelley will send me one this year when she opens up her Christmas stuff.

This year I made another stocking for Shelley's second daughter Charlotte. I adapted it from an Olivia illustration I found online. 

The cookie sheet with gingerbread men was in the original but I added the tree and the presents for some added interest.

The stockings are nice and big to accommodate plenty of loot, and I lined the front side so when Santa stuffs the stocking, nothing will catch on any embellishments.

I hope it will be part of many Merry Christmases for little Charlotte!

It's still too hot to finish painting the outside of the house, so I've started on the next project! More to come!