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!
