Christmas Stocking

I hope you are enjoying your pre-Christmas rituals. Over the weekend I got to do my favourite pre-Christmas task - putting up the tree. Over the last few years I have collected or been given a lot of lovely ornaments and I love upwrapping them and remembering where I got them from. This year I hung up for the first time the paper mache bells I bought in India last Christmas and the cloisonne balls I bought in Hong Kong in January.

Once the tree was up, I hung our stockings on the mantlepiece. Here is my much-loved stocking that my Mum sewed for me when I was about 2 or 3 (very early 1980s), along with a matching (but more "boyish") one for my younger brother.


It's designed to look like a house, with the hanging loop being the chimney and the yellow and white stripes being the steps up to the house. Most of the appliqued shapes are cotton, but the tree trunk is chocolate brown corduroy. We were living in the Pacific at the time and a lot of goods like fabric were hard to come by. I suspect she was sent some of these from NZ and delved into her extensive fabric stash she took with her to make these.

Here is some detail of the girl and the window behind her:

My favourite piece of fabric used in the stocking is that one on the window right behind the girl - the orange and blue flowers make me happy.