No Plans for a Baker's Dozen...

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

― Maya Angelou

Written in November 2016 by  Cathern Harrison 

    

It is that time of the year when Christmas takes over. The containers come out from the storage area and first we get  outside  decorated then it starts in the house.  Being a crafty person over the years I’ve made several Christmas ornaments as well as other odds and ends for the holidays.

However the ones I cherish and hope the owners do too took me 41 years to complete. Why? Well for one reason the first one was put away and not taken out to complete 18 years later.  It was given to our eldest son when he turned 25 :D

It was a needlepoint Christmas stocking a kit I’d found and ordered from either a Woman’s Day or Family Circle magazine. Decided to finish it because he was not living at home and  our youngest son who was still at home wouldn’t be slighted not having one I had created for him too. We also missed our eldest so it was a very emotional gift for me to create and give him.

 

That was in March and our youngest son’s was ready for Christmas that year. But what a task it was I used the same pattern as his brother’s however the graph was not working so I had to fiddle with it. The same happened with the next one, the girl’s version of what I had created for the boys.  Made up a kit and give it to our daughter-in-law as a birthday gift so she could make the stocking herself. That didn’t happen so I took it back and did it which turned out to be wise decision when the same problem cropped up as the pattern didn’t fit the graph or was that the needlework fabric? Got the stocking done though so knew several years later when we had a second daughter-in-law and she too was given the girl’s version of her husband’s stocking what to watch out for.

Before that happened grandchildren started to come along and I switched to cross stitching and youthful patterns.  At first teddy bears was a theme. It fit into what was happening in my life at the time, My sister and I had starting collecting teddies after our mother had passed away. I’d put a teddy bear in the coffin with her when I found out she was claustrophobic. How had I not knew that about my mother before she died?  Thus the cuddly little bears filled all parts of my life especially when I needed them three and some years after my mother passed away and on the very edge of a break down, (a story for another day).

 Meantime not sure what came next another grandchild or my stocking. Our second grandchild was a boy, a brother to the first so his stocking was created from the same pattern.  Whenever it was I started my stocking it too sat for a long time to be finished because it was not an easy pattern to create and then when I did get the cross stitching done felt guilty that I’d have one and my hubby, our Santa, wouldn’t - mine was put aside until I got his stitched then the final part, outlining the design, was done on mine and our stockings were both sewn and ready to hang last year.

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Before ours were done I have made four more cross-stitch stockings, from three different patterns. Our eldest granddaughter, sister to the two boys has a different design to her brothers. Their cousins a boy and two girls in that order, have two different designs; one for our youngest grandson and a different one for his sisters.

 

 Oh yes before I finished our stockings completely thanks to a friend showing me how she had finished her first grandchild’s stocking, I decided I wanted to do that to our  grandchildren’s stockings . 

 In October when we went to visit brought home the three eldest grandchildren’s stockings picked them apart cleaned the aide cloth (and design), The first one made 18 earlier had a stain on it that eventually came out, thought for a while I’d be stitching something over it as a disguise:D then they were sewn back together, now with the design surrounded with trim and lust material which gives the design a framed look, it makes the design stand out. And off they went back to Nova Scotia with their Christmas gifts for our gang down there.  Next on the agenda were the stockings for the three grandchildren back here.

   

   

Their parents now have bigger stockings to fill and  so do we for each other :D    Mind you our stockings are never big enough we use our old stocking too and there is still stuff spilling out :D It is great fun though to do and I actually enjoy opening my stocking stuffers more than the gifts under the tree.

                                       

Being creative is often a learning process and learning on the job so to speak, if you are teaching yourself. Such was the case with needlepoint and cross-stitching. It has happened often when I have seen something I want to create such as with the first stocking I made – saw it in a magazine and had to have it.

My mother was very creative but as far as I am aware she never did needlework or cross-stitch, or what I would call ‘fancy’ work. . She sewed out of necessity, crocheted, knitted for family, bazaars and gifts. She also, as I tend to, tried her hand at many things. To me she created items to be used or enjoyed daily not to hang on walls or stored away for months. At least, that is the lasting creativity impression I hold of Mom.

Have a feeling the challenge I had with the second through fourth needlepoint stockings was due to the wrong thread count of the canvas I was stitching the pattern onto – I soon learnt to pay attention to the count of Aide cloth for cross-stitching when a high number of stitches per inch was difficult to do. How was petty point ever accomplished or however many angels painted on the head of a pin?

 Obviously I still had not learned to note the stitch count when I fell in love with my stocking pattern which was put aside not only because other stockings were needed for grandchildren but because it was not an easy design to render. However now I know not only to check the stitch count but also to be aware of  ¼ and ½ stitches in the design yes they add something to the finished product but for me are frustrating to do so stay away from them if possible. 

Bless one of my dear sisters, as after I finished all the stockings last year went on and on about how I was never going to do another cross-stitch item 0 she gave me a printed on material kit to create. It is beautiful and I did start it but the challenge was too much right then so it was put aside and eventually will come out again to be finished… My niece, my sister’s daughter knew how I felt about cross-stitching at the time and tried to convince her mother that the kit was not a good idea, guess time will tell who will be right as I do enjoy a good challenge at the right time :D

Yes I used the same pattern for the first two cross-stitch stockings but the first had been a kit, thread included, the thread became a challenge when what was in the kit didn’t match any of the thread numbers I could find for the second stocking. A very kind woman in the shop where I got my threads helped me sort that problem out. It also taught me to be very organized when stitching and storing thread. My girlfriend that has created stockings for her three grandchildren using my patterns always tells me how organized I am, trust me I do it to stay sane :D  Being organized helped when I did my Santa’s stocking and the kit didn’t have enough thread (others that had tried to create the same stocking had the same problem I found out on-line), having threads stored by number order and colours allowed me to quickly find the same colour or something close enough so I didn’t have to go out and buy more.

Another thing I learned came with the 5^th grandchild’s stocking she was born in the fall and her stocking was well on the way when she was born then finished for Christmas. However I had stitched the given name as the one I had been told she was to be only to learn afterward it wasn’t – she has a completely different, shall we say ‘foreign’, version of my name, which is not my name and what I had stitched on her stocking. It didn’t bother anyone but me but it bothered me enough that eventually I stitched a stripe of aide with the proper name and sewed it over my name, because that is not her name and I didn’t want her to wonder why it was on her stocking.

Something by chance I learned came about because if you have not noticed sure you will now, there is no photo of one of the four needlepoint stockings – one of the couples split up a few years ago.  What did this teach me?  When we have family photos taken make sure to have some with just us, our sons and grandchildren just in case there is another split (they broke up shortly after we had family photos taken). Just hope the women in our son’s lives now understand why I do that and that they never have to experience as it was not pleasant to say the least.

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 Added Nov. 29 2016

Apple head Santa and Mrs Claus (crafted by Cathern:o)

Yesterday after I posted this went to help at a food bank. One of the items I marked the best before date on was a can of smoked oysters - it instantly brought to mind my father-in-law. Why? Because when my in-laws were with us or we with them Christmas morning to open gifts I would also fill the stockings I had made for them, (before we had any children),  so they wouldn't feel left out.  Cannot remember what else I put in their stockings but canned smoked oysters in my father-in-law's. After his wife passed away I continued to fill a stocking for him. 

1979 Our first Christmas in this house - my in-laws has stockings much like ours