Stocking up…
I have a very unpractical hobby…hand sewing felt. Stockings are my favorite. It is tedious, insanely time consuming, not cheap, and you can only keep so much of it. A stocking can take anywhere from 20-40 hours to make. When you have a family of four, I have to wait around for people to have babies until I can make the next one. And I don’t know that many people having babies currently. I did start making ornaments, but again you can only have so many felt ornaments. As terrible as I just made it sound, I enjoy it so much. I’m not one for sitting still. I don’t like to just sit and do nothing but chat or sit and watch television for hours on end, but with my stitching projects, my hands are occupied so that I can actually enjoy things that require me to sit still. That and I love seeing how slowly with each color, sequence, and bead they go from boring to beautiful.
One of the hardest things for me to lose during our fire was our stockings. Mine was the one my grandmother made me when I was a baby. And I had made the other three with much love, time and pin pricks for my family. I hadn’t taken down our Christmas decoration, so when I was allowed to go into the house, my heart broke to see what was left of the burnt up threads hanging there.
One of the hard things about the fire for our kids was remember, thinking back at what they lost. So as the mom, it was my job to guide them through the process of grieving and moving forward. So what I decided was for us to have things we look forward to. I gave them two projects. We started planning their bedrooms and they got to pick out their new stocking pattern. We spent so much time at Sherwin-Williams and scrolling stockings on Amazon and eBay. My oldest wanted his paint color close to their old color and his stocking to be the exact same. My youngest wanted everything different, thus so many hours of searching.
So these are what we ended up with.
If you enjoy long tedious projects that end with beautiful projects, felt crafts are the thing for you. These are some of my favorites. I just need somebody I know to have another baby!
