I actually finished something. And then we had to put it away.

I won't bore you with a mosaic of my finished projects of 2011, mainly because I finished next to nothing. It would be a two-frame mosaic of Henry and that enormous quilt. Maybe some knitting - I can't remember. I'm lucky I know what day it is. (Monday. Right?)

But I did manage to finish something for the holidays. The last stitches were put in on Christmas Eve morning, ready for Santa to fill them:

New stockings! (The dog sleeping in the sun is not new, nor is her stocking. Don't give me any grief about not making her a stocking, because her stocking is 10x more awesome than ours, and it was passed down to her from my childhood golden, Maggie, who was the greatest dog on Earth, godresthersoul.)

Henry and I picked up this fabric at Jo-Ann's back in October. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do. I went completely off grid with these bad boys, and I'm proud of say that with the exception of initially putting the lining together backwards, everything went pretty smoothly. Justin did have to help me draw the stocking shape because I kept ending up with a letter J. (Side note: file folders make very nice pattern pieces.)

Construction is very basic. I cut two stocking shapes out of leftover batting, then sewed my pieces directly on one at a time. Trimmed to make it pretty, did some decorative machine stitching, then sewed the two outside pieces together. Then I did the embroidery (chain stitch for some dimension and oomph), followed by the lining. And of course I lined them - what do you think we are, hobos?

I love them. And for the first time in history, I'm sad Christmas is over because we had to put them away. I will always remember this Christmas for being the one where we finally had awesome homemade stockings, even though Santa only put chapstick in mine. Neither Henry nor Gracie had anything in theirs, but Justin made out like a bandit. We'll be revisiting our priorities next Christmas.