What Kept Me from Blogging

Hello! Remember me? I have not forgotten you, my readers, but as you may have noticed, I haven't been able to write lately. The short explanation is, "I was busy getting ready for Christmas," but you know I never give short explanations for anything! It's true that I WAS busy getting ready for Christmas. And how delightful to be busy with such a thing! It's so much better than *schoolhomeworkjobhomeworkstudyingtestjobhomeworkChristmas*. I actually got to shop, wrap presents, drink hot chocolate, etc. Great fun. But the thing that got me off of blogging was a project I started at the beginning of November.

When I was a baby, my grandmother made me a Christmas stocking, as she did with all of her grandchildren. Isn't it pretty?

After I got a little older and saw my friends' stockings and what was being sold in stores, I realized how special my grandmother's hand-made stockings really were! That made my stocking a treasure, and I have always loved it. As I thought toward this Christmas--my first with The Black Belt--I decided I would make HIM a stocking so that he would have a special one too, made by someone who loves him very much. I went online and picked out a stocking kit that looked similar to mine and waited excitedly to begin!

I wish I had a picture of the kit that arrived. Talk about COMPLICATED! I had thread and fabric and needles and sequins and beads and instructions and pictures and not really a clue of how to make a stocking! But I dove right in, closely following the directions as best I could. When I saw the instructions, I knew this would be a big project, because there were like 75 steps.What I did not anticipate was HOW LONG it would take me to do every step. Between changing the thread, getting out the right color sequin, and the actual sewing, it took me hours a day just to get through one line of instructions. (And that's not even counting the time it took to undo something I'd done in error...) I realized that if I wanted to get it done by Thanksgiving (so I could surprise The Black Belt), I'd have to spend all day, every day stitching.

Following this schedule, I got it completed enough to present to The Black Belt at Thanksgiving and then finished it part-way into December. I can spot the mistakes that I made and couldn't correct, but I bet most people won't, and The Black Belt and I are both very happy with the end product. I asked him what we were going to do if our kids decided they wanted their own sequined stockings too, and he said, "We'll just tell him those are for mommies and daddies. They can have the plain ones." :-)