my first sewing project!

obviously, this is a little past the season...  but what's the fun of posting things on time?  i have twin boys who just turned one, people.  so...  onto the stockings -- my siblings and i all had hand-embroidered (by my mom) stockings growing up and i knew i didn't want to buy ones for the boys.  but i also knew i wasn't about to take on embroidering.  especially since i started thinking about them in late november.  so while reading all of my crafty blogs one day, i found a pretty simple-looking pattern over at the purl bee.  i borrowed my mom's sewing machine, had a hey-day at joann's picking out all of our fabric colors, and made these in a couple of days.  i don't think they will be the stockings they have forever, just because i'm not 100% satisfied with them, but i really do love them and am pretty proud to say i sewed them myself.  i hand-embroidered their names at the top free-hand and for a little something extra, sewed two buttons below.  i was going to give finn one button and liam two, for their birth order, but it didn't look good, so they both got two.  i also have to say that i didn't want them to end up having the same color, but i also sewed a couple for bryan and myself, and had a brain freeze when i started embroidering bryan's name into the stocking meant for one of the boys.  oops.  i had a few pictures of all of them hanging on the mantel, but i don't really like how bryan's and my names (that might not be grammatically correct) turned out, so maybe next year when i've become a lot better at sewing and have re-made all of them, will i then post those as well.  merry christmas! happy new year. :)

and maybe don't click on the pictures to make them bigger, only because then you can really see the imperfections.   the imperfections that show that they were made by me. with love. :)