I made myself my first stocking last year. I stayed up all night on Christmas Eve to make it. I actually wanted to make two, but I ran out of time, and I never ended up making that second one.
A few weeks ago, Tess‘ bf Nathanael asked if I might help handmake Tess her very first Xmas stocking, now that they are settled in Brooklyn. He told me that he has had the same personalized stocking since he was a kid, and he wanted Tess to have the same, since I guess her family never really went all-out for the holiday. He wrote, “I’m excited to show her the joys of Christmas. ” So cute! How could I say no? He requested that it be pink and that it have some things on it that Tess likes, like stars and bows. Also that the lettering should say “TE$$.”
My personal aesthetic leans toward the overly sweet and cute. And I tend to go overboard with a “more is more” philosophy. Tess is really styley and has an edgier aesthetic than I do, so I made an attempt to get her sense of “cool” in there, even if it ended up toward the slightly humorous with my fake pyramid studs.
Personally, I love pink and gold together. It rides that perfect line between tacky and cute.
At first I really wasn’t sure about the studs, but I emailed some pics to Nathanael, and he also thought they were funny and that Tess would get a kick out of them.
Instead of putting a bunch of smaller bows all over the stocking, I decided to go with one statement bow right on top.
This was the first time I crocheted a stocking with someone’s specific personality in mind. It was really super fun! It was not exactly traditional, but, I guess you don’t come to me for traditional! 
The stocking crocheted up pretty quickly, and the longest part was really figuring out the sizing of the lettering and making sure it all fit. I kind of made a million S’s because I knew that was the most difficult to alter, and then I just made sure the T and the E matched in size.
I based my stocking off of this pattern from Red Heart, and I based my lettering off this webpage for crocheting the letters of the alphabet. There aren’t any photos working on the alphabet page, but…. you know what the letter A looks like, so I think you can take it from there!
I still have some things for my family that I need to crochet, and I also still need to wrap all my presents!!! It’s been a really busy holiday season for me. Just a heads-up: I’ll be closing my Etsy shop for a couple weeks really soon. I have a TON of Yummy You deadlines coming up, and I felt SO overwhelmed for the past month or so. I knew something had to give, and the one thing I really have control over is Etsy, so don’t be alarmed. I hope to re-open no later than February 1, just in time for lots of cute Valentine’s Day stuff! I also keep saying that I want time to work on new designs, so it’s high time I do that as well! I’m looking forward to it!
