The miracle of the stockings

Brett and I got married in November 2009 and a month later needed stockings for Christmas. So I told Brett we would be making them and called him from Hancock Fabrics and asked him what he wanted to decorate his with. He told me he wanted to use gold glitter. In his mind I was buying cheap ready made stockings and we’d be decorating them with glitter and Elmer’s glue. That evening he discovered otherwise. I had red satin fabric that we appliquéd gold and silver lamé to (him a gold Aleph and Tav, me silver snowflakes). Then I quilted them and put them together and we hung them up for Christmas. The following year I embroidered our names on them.

At Christmas 2012 I was pregnant with Iddo and went to JoAnns to buy some red satin to make another stocking with. But when I got home the JoAnn satin was too orange compared with the Hancock satin so I returned the JoAnns and bought more from Hancocks and made another stocking. This time with a green satin Christmas tree. The following year (after she was born), I embroidered her name on it.

At Christmas 2014 I was pregnant with Shimri and Shimei. I went back to Hancocks and bought some more red satin and made two more stockings. Shimri’s has a white and yellow candle and Shimei’s has a yellow and white star. The following year (after they were born), I embroidered their names on them.

In July of 2016 Hancock Fabrics went out of business. But that was okay. We were finished with our family and I had a matching set of five beautiful red stockings.

At Christmas 2016 I was pregnant with Izri. I just didn’t know it.

So Christmas 2017. Izri is very much a part of our family and he needs to be included as such. Which meant I needed a sixth red satin stocking, made out of red satin from a store that doesn’t exist any more. I found scraps from Brett’s and my stockings that would be enough for me to do the front half of a stocking, but not a whole stocking. I’d heard rumors that Michael’s had bought the fabric line from Hancock and was selling it online. I could order a swatch to see if the red satin matched for $2 plus shipping, or I could throw caution to the wind and buy a whole yard for $5 plus shipping. I bought the yard.

The package arrived and I nervously opened it up. I pulled it out. It was definitely the right type of fabric. I got my scraps out to compare the color.

Perfect match!

And so I made a sixth stocking. This time with a gold present with a green bow.

Next Christmas I’ll embroider his name on it.