stockings

Can you believe this is my mantel? I love it!
Elie loves playing with her stockings...

Jeff caught this "cozy winter moment"...the nursing baby, the doggie, the blanket, the neighbors sweet vw bus parked, perpetually, across the street...
eliana chillin' with her tree...

i'm kind of going a little holiday crazy out here in mountainland. i decided a few weeks ago that i needed to order stockings for our house this year, one for each one of the family members. after spending what felt like the better part of a sunday afternoon looking at stockings on-line, i finally decided to go with this gal in minnesota who makes stockings "the old fashioned way." you know, patches and buttons and fun little reindeer and snowmen and what have you. it was that or the super, snazzy, pottery barn kids kinds that didn't really feel like us. while i wasn't overjoyed with my purchase (i don't really usually jive with things called "old fashioned"), it seemed fine. but then the email came that said that the minnesota stocking wouldn't be ready until february 2008. so i took matters into my own hands. i walked into the fabulous new fabric store on the hip strip, selvedge studios, and asked one of the owners if they someone around there could help a gal out, and make some stockings for a sweet little family.

quick background info: i do not sew. i would love to sew. i have tried to sew. i even went as far as attempt to "sew my own gifts" one year, trying, in such a befuddled way, to be a little more montana, a little bit more crafty, or country kitchen, or whatever you say. but i just hate it. the precision involved. the needles. the thread. the straight edges and foresight. i'm a little too fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants to handle the whole thing. god knows i would love to make my own clothes. i'd even love to hem my own pants. but it's just really not my thing.

so back to the story. the sweet gal said sure, overcome, of course, by the little lady with the big, earnest eyes and sparkly dimples, smiling up at her (that would be eliana, not her mama, lest you be a bit confused as to what little lady with what sparkly dimples...). at this point i realized that i didn't have a vision. i wanted three stockings, sorta christmas-y, but not too much. i said something to the gal like, "i want one for a sweet baby, one for a manly husband, and one fabulous one, for me." and this is what i got. i couldn't be happier. i could stare at my mantel for hours. my tree too. i'm digging on christmas this year.