Friends of HKS: Guest Blogger Series

Hi! My name is Rose. I live in a small town with my husband, Toddy, daughter, Everly, and dog,  Grizzle. By day, I'm a teacher, in my 'free' time I love doing pottery, DIY projects and spending time with family and friends. 

Stocking Patches – A New Christmas Tradition

Over the course of the past year my family has experienced a baby boom. We’ve welcomed three new babes in total (all born within 9 months of each other). My brother and his wife had a boy named Ryshen in December ‘10, my sister and her husband had a girl named London in September ’11 and my husband and I had a girl we named Everly in January ’11.

My sister-in-law, Amber, heard about this idea from her neighbour and thought our family would be game to try it out. The jist is that each baby starts with a Christmas stocking. Every year, starting this Christmas, they’ll receive a new patch for their stocking made for them by their aunts/mom/Grama. The patches are supposed to represent them or something important to them. I really love that years down the road each of them will be able to look back at their patches and see all of the stages of their lives. The hope is that each stocking will eventually be covered with patches.

In order for the tradition to begin we needed Christmas stockings. Each mom (Amber, my sister Robyn, and myself) made stockings for our own kids. The catch here was that they had to be 3 feet long. These stockings are longer than the babies and in London’s case, she fits inside! The reason that we made them this size was that Amber was making Ryshen’s big (in her family, stockings are a bigger deal than presents, so there has to be a lot of room for it’s contents) and we wanted all of them to be similar in size.

My sister and I decided to make our stockings together so we could consult each other (but mostly because my mom was also there to offer advice). After a wild trip (shopping basket baby rides, a lot of indecision, impatient salespeople, crying babies) to Fabricland, we had all of our material to begin making the stockings. We started by drawing a template and then cut our fabric. We lined each stocking with cotton quilting batting so that it had some weight and would keep its shape well. Once we sewed the pieces together we finished the top with trim.

When it came time to make the patches there weren’t too many rules. Each patch had to be made out of something that could be sewn onto the stocking and be approximately 3x3 in size. That was it.

For the patches I made I thought that felt would do the job the best. I love felt because of the array of colours to choose from and the fact that the edges don’t fray. I decided to make each patch circular and cut out the little pieces that made up the design. The only part that took some time was stitching them all together.

The patch I made for Ryshen is a scene that I associate with where he was born/lives in Terrace, B.C. When we went to visit him this past summer we went hiking in the mountains, hung out down by the Skeena River and went salmon fishing. I know that in the coming years all of these things will be an important part of his life.

For Miss London’s patch I went in a totally different direction. She has a pretty unique name in that her middle name is Electric. That’s right. For her patch I liked the idea of the famous Tower Bridge in London, UK with a lightning bolt above it. In the end, I think it’s one of my favourites.The patch I made Everly also represents her name. It’s an E (for Everly) in the middle of a sun because her middle name is Sunshine.

My sister made her patches out of fabric.

My sister-in-law, Amber, made her patches using her childhood bed sheets and some other materials.

My mom (Grama) made quilted bears for each of the babies out of fabric and ribbon (Grama got a little excited and made hers quite a bit larger than the rest – this was before we decided on the size and all of the other details).

My brother also wanted to get in on the action by hand painting colourful fish on canvas.

While the stockings aren’t completely finished yet (they will be by Christmas!), I love the way they turned out. We’re all really looking forward to seeing how these patches evolve and how each stocking changes in the Christmases to come.

Miss E checking out her new stocking!

Thanks for Reading and Happy Holidays!

-Rose
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You can see more of Rosey and her 

craftiness at her website, 

Sunshine Pottery.  

Trust me, you'll be happy you did.