Stockings are up!

Green Stocking

I had some nice fair isle sweaters from my last trip to the Salvation Army store. I was saving them to make totes, but really... We need some cute Christmas stockings.

Christmas Stockings

Ours hang in our entryway along the staircase. The one on the far left still needs it's cuff... I added the poinsettia because they needed a little bit of pizazz and something to unify them a bit. The poinsettia is one that was a paper craft project I did with my students (back in my "past life" as a teacher) at holiday time when we studied holiday celebrations in Mexico. I always loved this poinsettia pattern and wanted to do it in felt. It's not like me to use glue very much, but these are put together with fabric glue and I expect to just tack stitch them to the stockings sometime before Santa arrives.

Here's a tip for sewing with felted sweaters: The curved seams looked terrible and wonky when I turned them for the heels and toes of each stocking. They just needed a little blocking and now they look fine. Blocking is when you dampen the wool with water and shape the wool as desired and let it dry.

Beginning Band Concert
My son likes reading my blog so he'll want you to know that he had his first band concert last night. About half of his fifth grade signed up for the band so there were about 250 students playing at his first concert. Since they've only been playing for about 6 weeks, they managed things like "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Hot Cross Buns". His teacher is terrific so the kids were very proud and well behaved. It was great fun!