Stocking thoughts....

Due to Internet problems my stocking swap partner was unable to get in contact to let me know that it had arrived and of course I feared the worst!! However, last week I received and email and it had arrived in Australia on Christmas Eve. I used the pattern that I featured in an earlier post.

It has several shapes, sizes and decoration ideas. It is one pattern that is bound to be brought out year after year.

I visited my partners blog a few times to have a good look round and then hunted through my stash for suitable fabric.

I settled for some lovely Cath Kidson fabric that I had bought last summer in Brighton when visiting my sister-in-law. I lined the stocking with crisp white cotton.

On the fabric I then high-lighted areas with sparkly iridescent sequins. I decided against adding anything else as I did not want to ruin the fact that Cath Kidston fabric was the main feature.

In contrast I then used some cotton gingham as this type of fabric features quite a bit in my partners own work and blog. This was made double thickness so that the raw edges were hidden. Along the top edge I then stitched some flat craft buttons in a dark pinky colour and some pink binding to finish the edge off nicely. I was a little worried that it did not look Christmas enough so I added a hanging loop with some mew green cross grain ribbon with dark green Christmas trees on it. In the parcel I also included a card, some fabric and couple of other little items.

I am going to feature the other entrants once I have tracked down all of the pictures because not all have been sent to me or blogged about so it is taking longer than I thought.

I shall be running another Christmas swap this year with another theme and this time I shall post it a bit earlier. I have the theme already and even an example item made up. The next one will have a basic pattern and simple instructions available if required via email, and should be suitable for a wide range of crafts so I hope to attract a wider range of participants.

My giveaway pictures did not turn out very well, taking pictures in the evening is not helpful, especially when one of the items is white! So I shall have another go at the weekend. It has been very hectic this week at work, trying to catch up with missed lessons due to last weeks snow. Back to normal this week and it has flown by.

Take care and back tomorrow.

Keep warm.

xx