New Baby, New Stocking!

The Wallace Family Stockings, hooked in 2023. This year, we needed a new one for Baby Charlie!

I hope this post strikes a chord with you--the joy of hooking Christmas stockings for the dear families in our lives! It's such a pleasure to hook them, and when they are appreciated, it's an honor to have given something that will be a part of a Christmas tradition for decades to come.

If you want to, scroll right now for the photos of Charlie! But come back to the top, and read about hooked stockings. From almost my earliest hooking days, I've had families-worth of Christmas stockings on my project lists.

THE PHILLIPS FAMILY STOCKINGS, 2011

My sister-in-law, Kay, was never interested in hooking--she's devoted to home, garden, and cooking family dinners! But she LOVES handmade items for her home, and back in 2011, six stockings made up her Christmas present from me.

For my brother Pete's stocking and and his wife Kay's, I hooked the Christmas tree and a tall candle in an old-fashioned candle holder.

For Bella, their oldest daughter, I hooked a bell ornament.

Christian has always loved baseball. Gracie, the baby of the family, is a gift. Everyone agrees on that! I loved hooking the fun nicknames for these two kids!

I drew the patterns pretty much in descending size, from the largest for Dad to the smallest for their little dog. Rather than the formal first names of the family, I hooked their nicknames: Dad (Pete, my brother), Mom (Kay), Bella (Isabella), Chich (Christian), and Woo (Gracie). I didn't put a name on the doggie stocking. I loved (the late) Maizie--their first little Maltese, but I thought that they would have more dogs in their future--and they have.

Each stocking had a motif--a symbol of the person. For Pete, the strong tree. For Kay, a candle and its warm light. For Bella, the beautiful bell ornament. For baseball-lover Christian, a bat with a bow. Gracie is a wrapped gift. The doggie--a bone.

I wanted the stockings to look like they belonged together, but also for each stocking to have its own design and color scheme. So I tried to give them unifying elements, like the hit-or-miss backgrounds and the colorful toes and heels of each stocking. The motifs are very simple. You'll notice black and gold outlines and elements, too. The lettering of each name in gold against a solid background was unifying. Having bought a beautiful gold wool from Laura Pierce, I included it in each motif as well.

It was fun to orient the dog's stocking the other direction--toe to the right. And this stocking has a multi-colored hit-or-miss background without a dominant color. I had been hooking for a few years at this point, and was very excited to design these stockings--a little series!

It's so gratifying when someone loves our hooked gifts. Kay has told me more than once that hanging the stockings is one of her favorite Christmas traditions.

THE WALLACE FAMILY STOCKINGS, 2023

Fast forward a dozen years to Bella's wedding in 2023, a lovely affair! And an occasion for a new series of stockings. Bella is a young person who cares a great deal about family tradition and heirlooms. She has incorporated some of her grandparents' and great-grandparents' furnishings into her first home.

Her marriage to Nolan was in June, and by October, I was at work on three stockings. By this time, I was a different rug hooker, and I wanted these stockings to be somewhat like those Bella grew up with, but also NEW.

Gold is still important in this set of stockings, but this time, I hooked gold behind the names and outlined every motif with it: Nolan--the supportive tree of this new little family; Bella, a new bell ornament; and for the doggie (Tricky), his bone. I used a smaller cut for these motifs than I did in the Phillips Family Stockings.

To make the bell look silvery, I used this wool.

You might notice that I don't go so much for true reds and greens of Christmas. Rather, I think that many colors can contribute to the spirit of the season!

Bella chose a sapphire for her wedding ring, and I attempted to hook that precious stone at the top center of her stocking. Also, here's a special wool I used for her new bell ornament. I hoped to make it look silvery. I have never found this wool again, and am always on the look-out for it or something like it!

Bella snapped this photo, as I held Charlie. I could have held him all day! 🥰

Until I learned his gender at his birth, I wrote "child stocking" on the paper template and pattern. I'll make Charlie's future siblings' stockings from this template, too!

Once again, we zoom ahead a few years to today. Because Bella and Nolan didn't know the gender of their baby until he was born, I just drew the stocking shape--without a name and no idea of a motif!

Charles Henry Wallace was born six weeks early at 4.5 lbs. He's been home from the NICU for a few weeks now, and he's doing very well at over six pounds! Because Nolan is the pine tree, I decided to make Charlie's stocking a pine cone. He came from the family tree, and he contains the seeds of the future!

To make the natural element of the pine cone more festive, I added a little bit of color plus a red bow and the green pine needles. My friends, Karla, Lorie, and Pat affirmed my impulse to outline pine needles in gold (#4-cut) like all other elements.

Charlie's stocking is inside-out here. I had a little more sewing to do before I whipped the edges.

All of my stockings have been completely symmetrical until now. The longer sprig of pine needles on the right side make this motif asymmetrical, and I like that. Bella really likes Charlie's stocking--and that's what matters.

Charlie's finished stocking here.

THE PAVICH FAMILY STOCKINGS, WAY BACK

To round out this post, I'll just include the FIRST stockings I ever made--so simple. No names. Just the star for me and the moon for Mike. Before I ever began to hook, I had bought a hit-or-miss stocking online, and it became the inspiration for many family stockings to come. The designs have changed over the years, but there's a coziness or maybe a nostalgic feeling that I get from the humble hit-or-miss element. I will always love it!

Nothing fancy, yet Mike and I love our nearly 20-year-old stockings. You can't go wrong with hit-or-miss!

I have searched for photos of the Garcia Family Stockings--to no avail. I'll have to snap a picture when we're in Hawaii this December!

I have not talked about stocking assembly, which is a whole subject of its own! Let me know in the comments if you're interested in more about that! For now, I'll just say that I'm grateful to Lilly Phillips (my mom) and to Kathy Berkshire (a kind friend) for help with sewing and serging over the years!

Bella, Charlie, and inadvertently, the fireplace where these stockings will hang soon!

Scroll for a few more photos below.

Don't we wonder sometimes what will become of all the rugs on our floors and our walls? It's nice to know that when handmade gifts become part of the family tradition, our hooking could remain in our families for generations to come.

Thank you for reading my Noodlings today, Friends! We may have more stockings to come this Christmas Season (from my friends!). Until then, Happy Hooking!

Saved for later!

P.S.

I had to borrow the set of stockings from Bella in order to design Charlie's, and I'm sure I'll need to borrow again when his first little sibling comes along. But I'm hanging on to this template for the stocking size and the area for hooking the name. I also have a paper template for the back side of the stocking, including the margins for sewing.

All of these things, plus the all-important gold woolens that I used, will be stored in a safe place until they're needed again. Bella says she would love to have four children. So much to look forward to--hooking stockings and holding babies!

This gorgeous gold was one of two that I used in Bella's family stockings. It was dyed by Laura Pierce of Flying Dog Hookery in Petaluma, CA. Put away for safekeeping now.