Old News!

[Part I: Christmas Stockings]

Today is my two-year blogiversary. I thought I'd mark the day by actually blogging for a change.*

And rather than offering any real thoughtful remarks about my blogging journey, and/or the online craft community, and/or how the advent of Ravelry might be changing both my personal journey and the online craft community as a whole, I'm just going to jump right in with a little FO-report. Because honestly, every time I try to write anything more substantial than this, I get completely bogged down and overwhelmed. So here we go.

Christmas stockings! Happy January 15 to you.

I realize it doesn't look like much. But these 8 stockings (there are two little ones down at the bottom that didn't photograph well) represent a moment of real insanity on my part.

My Old Man practically begged me not to do any crafting for Christmas. He didn't want me to have the stress of that (during what is already a pretty stressful time of year for us, work-wise), which would mean added stress for the whole household. Because when earthchick is stressed-out, everyone has to deal with it. I like to suck people into my vortex whenever possible.

At any rate, I did greatly cut back on my Christmas crafting list. But in retrospect, I still tried to do too much, given our work situation, and given the fact that we were hosting out-of-town family (and when I host, I go a bit overboard with the cooking and the baking [but not the cleaning!]), and then leaving for 9 days on a 2000-mile road trip. December 22nd found me holed away in my study, cutting and sewing stockings a few hours before serving our big Christmas dinner (yes, I said the 22nd - we did our big dinner early this year). At approximately 4:00 that afternoon, with the stockings done and a puppet theater still to go, I concluded that I probably wasn't going to sew and hand-embroider a Christmas tablecloth and matching napkins in time for dinner. At approximately 4:05 I began to wonder if something was actually wrong with me, mentally speaking, that I had still been holding out hope of getting such a project done. But I digress.

Last year, I knit my MIL a stocking and sewed stockings for the boys. My Old Man and I had stockings I bought from our first Christmas together. But this year, my BIL was coming too, and even though my MIL volunteered to bring a stocking for him, I used his visit as an excuse to make another stocking. And then I used that as an excuse to make everyone a new stocking (except for the boys). Because the stockings all need to coordinate, right? RIGHT?!?

mine, My Old Man's, Little Buddha's, Tiny Dancer's, MIL's, BIL's

pattern: just a basic free pattern from about.com
fabric: basic cotton from Joann's, cuff from leftover fleece
made: in a couple of hours

verdict: unexceptional, but not ugly
[some complained that they were too small (those people shall remain nameless, but I will say that it wasn't our guests - how rude would that be? - and it wasn't our sons because they don't know the difference)]

I said I made 8, and I've only shown you 6. There were only 6 people here for Christmas. So why would I make 8?

Because of course I had to make a couple for the cats.

Yeah, there may be something wrong with me, mentally speaking.

*I am also marking the day by failing to meet a writing deadline that I am under contract for. Does the fact that I am blogging instead of working on that writing indicate that perhaps I have problems with time management and priority-setting? [Or maybe you already had that impression from the whole "let's make stockings for the cats instead of acting like a proper host to my guests" episode.]