New Stockings for Christmas

When my first child was born in 1996, I had a neighbor who had cute patchwork-looking stockings, so I bought the same pattern and made Christmas stockings for myself, my husband, and my son.  Through the years, with the birth of each child, I pulled out the pattern again and made another stocking for them.  By the time my last baby was born in 2009, however, these stockings no longer seemed as cute; rather, they looked very dated!  I decided I would make updated stockings for the entire family, so I never made baby #5 a patchwork stocking.  The problem was, I never thought about stockings until it was Christmas time, and then I was too busy to sew anything, let alone take on such a big project!  I also wasn't sure exactly what the new ones would look like.  So for 4 years, we hung a store-bought fleece stocking for the baby!

This Christmas (2013), I finally decided that my "baby" would notice that his stocking did not match the others, nor did it have his name on it!  So I pulled myself together in November, and began scouring Pinterest for ideas.  I finally settled on burlap-based stockings, knowing that they, too, will look dated in a few years!  (Good thing I like to sew!)  I found all of the fabric I needed at my local Walmart, and embellishments at Hobby Lobby.  Rather than have names embroidered on the stocking, I chose to hang a gift tag from each one with the first initial of each person on them (luckily we don't have any repeated letters, at least if you count mom as "M" and dad as "D").  I finally felt like I was living in the 'teens when I hung my new stockings this year!