When I was raising my family, I wanted them all to have personalized stockings. Back then, I was into cross-stitching so I cross-stitched their names on it as well as ones for my husband and myself.
Over the years, our family has grown by leaps and bounds and I wanted to do personalized stockings for each new member of our family. Long story short, when my mom was very ill and before she passed away, she asked me to knit infinity scarves for all of her granddaughters and her daughter-in-law. What? Mom??? I don't knit! You see we had just moved to northern California from Arizona and I didn't know many people as of yet. My mom and dad were staying with us so I could help out with my mom's cancer treatment and my mom asked me to do this while she was in intensive care transitioning to hospice. I often wondered why my mom would make a request like that when she knew I didn't knit. The only reason I came up with was we were new to California and my mom knew I hadn't met many friends as of yet. I think she wanted me to have a "project" to do after she passed away to meet people to keep my mind busy. Meeting people had never been a problem for me; but you know how us moms are: taking care of our loved ones until our last breath.
One of my dear neighbors, Stacy, got wind of my mom's request and offered to teach me how to knit. What a wonderful and patient angel she is. Anyways, that's how I got started on knitting and these stockings became a labor of love to give to any new member that came into our family. You will notice from the above picture there are our original five (5) cross stitched stockings from our family, maroon and cream stockings for my daughter in laws and a green and cream stocking for my son in law. I wanted my grandchildren's stockings to be larger and to stand out when you look at the mantel. So, I made theirs with striped heels. This way you can look at my mantel and see our family's progression. . I look forward every Christmas to filling Isabelle, Hazel and Carson's stockings to the brim with lots of goodies from Gigi and Pa. When I'm creating these knitted stockings, I feel as if my mom knows her great-grandchildren through me so these are a labor of love to them and I wouldn't have started this if it wasn't for my mom's request.
I got this easy to make stocking pattern through Churchmouse Yarns and Teas and the yarn through Jimmy Beans Wool. I'm a very project-oriented person so in 2017 our family grew by five stockings so that year I was a busy knitting Gigi!
Hope this inspires you to create a treasure that your family will have for years to come - whatever it may be!
By the way, on my mom's one year anniversary of her death, I completed her wish and gave different infinity scarves to each lady in our family along with a personal message of what they meant to my mom.
xoxoxo,
Gigi Susie