Hailey's "docking"

It was Trent's mom's tradition to make a cross stitched Christmas stocking for all of her grandchildren. She had seven of the eight completed when she died two years ago. She was still in the process of working on Hailey's.

She had been cross stitching for years and the stockings that she made had increased in difficulty over the years. This is the one she picked out for Hailey. Gorgeous, but intense.

Last Christmas Trent's dad gave Hailey a stocking that he purchased to make up for the fact that her stocking was never finished. A very sweet gesture, but I really wanted Hailey to have the stocking that her Grandma Lyn had chosen and started for her.

So I decided that I would teach myself how to do counted cross stitch. Not that I need any more hobbies, but it turned into sort of a mission. Last year right after Christmas, I bought a little kit to make a book mark.


Not bad for a first try huh?

Feeling confident in my ability, I asked Trent's dad if I could have Lyn's cross stitching things and the partially finished stocking so that I could complete it for Hailey. He seemed happy that I wanted to do it, warned me about the number of hours it would take and told me that she never did get very far on it.

The first thing I looked at was the pattern. I could feel my confidence beginning to wane a bit.

Those are a lot of little crosses.

And he wasn't kidding around when he said she didn't have much completed.

Oh boy! What did I get myself into? (I don't know what is up with the yellowness in these shots. Obviously my white balance was totally messed up.)

So here we are a almost a year later and I have been working on the stocking a bit here and there. The kids love to see me stitching on it. All three of them are so complimentary and tell me what a good job I am doing. It is the cutest thing! Some nights while I am sitting on the couch watching TV, Hailey will walk over to the fireplace and grab the basket with the cross stitch stuff it in and set it down in front of me. Or she will ask me "Mom? Are you going to work on my "docking" tonight?" She knows that Grandma picked it out for her and is very excited about it.

I am pretty impressed with the progress that I have made in the last year. Hopefully next year she may be able to hang up her completed "docking"!