Wild Hope Homestead

Last Christmas I was feeling remorseful for not having a proper Christmas stocking for The Little Fulla. He was four months old and he got lumped with one of his father’s big socks to ‘open’ on the big day. I don’t think he noticed. He was too young to even pull the joyous surprises out of a stocking. But I swore that he would have a knitted stocking for his next Christmas. Christmas was ages away and I got stuck on labourous, or rather, labourless, never-ending knitting projects like jerseys. Come end of November, I suddenly remembered with terror that I had forgotten about knitting the Christmas stocking! I quickly acquired the necessary yarn and needles for the pattern I had chosen a year beforehand and began to knit.

Then the craziness of Christmas season hit. Knitting generally requires sitting down for significant periods of time, and it is well known that I have trouble sitting still. The knitting is supposed to help with the something-to-do-while-sitting-still, but Christmas + summer + lots of chickens = too many moving around tasks. And thus, I ended up with another Christmas knitting project that had to be finished by Christmas Eve but should have been finished before December. Oops. Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as last time. It wasn’t a present for someone and I did manage to finish it on Christmas Eve. Well, ‘finish’ it. The yarn tails on the inside got woven in a few days after Christmas and the stocking gained some simple snowflake/star embellishments. And so, The Little Fulla got to put his wee hands into a proper Christmas stocking for the first time and I got to admire this attractive, glorified giant sock hanging on the wall by the fireplace.

Now, I am going to knit another one. The Husband’s bought Christmas stocking is starting to come apart at the top so he needs a knitted one. In similar colours. His and my current stockings don’t match the rest of the lounge or Christmas decor anyway, so I actually need to knit a stocking for myself as well. It is no good having ill-matching Christmas stockings hanging up on the wall. A group of similar-coloured but different-patterned Christmas stockings will look just lovely. And I am actually going to start the next stocking soon. Very soon… Did I mention that I’m starting my very last small business paper in January? January is in three days’ time. I’m giving myself full marks for filling up my plate.