The shoe cables a repent reward near the visible.

Cross-stitching my family's Christmas stockings

(For some reason a few of my pictures have rotated once I inserted them into the blog and I can't seem to fix it. So please ignore my sideways photos!)

My mom unknowingly started a tradition over 30 years ago. She spent several months of patience and dedication and eventually hand stitched 5 Christmas stockings - one for every member of our family. Every December we hung those stockings and knew that they were special because they truly were made with love.

Now that I have a family of my own I wanted to continue the tradition and stitch a stocking for each of us. So I went online and ordered three Christmas stockings. I found them at www.walmart.com for between $15-25 a piece.

One thing I learned from my mothers mistake is to be sure that each stocking you get has the same measurements and that the "feet" face in the same direction. Ordering them all the same brand helps to avoid that error, but it doesn't hurt to save the dimensions for future purposes.

The package comes with everything you need to complete the project, including the backing to the stocking. One thing I will suggest though, purchase some extra needles just in case. I have already lost two and like having extra!

Honestly, when I decided to start this project I thought it would be easy. Boy was I wrong! I stared at all of my materials for several days without a clue how to begin. I looked online and didn't find much help there either. So I went through a bit of trial and error. I still am figuring out what I am doing, but hopefully these steps will help get you started too!

This is what you will start with. A very intimidating blank surface. Fold this in half "hot dog style" to find the center point. start a few rows down from the top and mark that center point. There will be some kind of arrow/triangle marking the center on your key as well and that will be your starting point.

Your key will have 10x10 grids throughout it. I found that "outlining" the stocking with just one strand of black makes the whole project easier. Counting out the lines within the 10x10 grids was the easiest way to avoid losing my spot.

Now for the fun part. If you understand the concept behind paint-by-numbers then you will get the hang of this quickly. The reference sheet has lots of little pictures representing what color, quantity, and style of stitch will go into that tiny little square.

Once you know where you would like to start, check the key and see what thread you need.

The number in the parenthesis is the quantity of strings you will use, and the column the symbol is in tells you what kind of stitch you will use. The first number in the grid is the code that you will match to find the color you need.

And now you start! Be sure that you stitch in the same direction the whole time. This will make everything more uniform and neat. The single cross stitch will end up looking like this / and the cross-stitch will end up looking like this X.

 One thing that has helped me is to highlight what I have done. This just helps to keep me on track and prevents me from losing my place.

I am not finished yet, but I will update this as I continue on. Cross-stitching is fun, relaxing and addictive. The work can become tedious but the end result is worth it!