Going domestic

I am probably the least domestic person you will ever meet. I hate to cook, clean, do laundry and I certainly do NOT sew or craft things. However, I love Christmas and I think that Christmas traditions are very important. When I was growing up, my brothers and sister and I all had a handmade stocking that my mom had done. They are each a different material and have our names on them. We still use them. When Alicia and I had our first Christmas, I bought stockings and decided I would try to sew our names on. I did and it wasn't too bad. Now that we have Parker, I really wanted to make her a stocking like my mom had made for me. The concept of actually making something from nothing scared the crap out of me. Sewing machines are completely beyond my realm of understanding. I think I may have made a pillow once in the 6th grade - not sure. Anyway, for the sake of my child's Christmas memories, I decided to embark on this journey. I bought the fabric, (with help from Alicia because I was intimidated by the fabric counter) traced our stockings and cut out two stocking shapes. This part wasn't so bad. I sewed her name on the front. So far so good - but now came the actual sewing. OI! My mother was in town for Thanksgiving and my sister-in-law has a sewing machine. It couldn't be that hard, right? My mom and I have a hard time working on things like this together. She has a tendency to tell me I am doing things all wrong and I am stubborn and don't want to do them anyone else's way. Additionally, she is not great at explaining things. So, when she used the term "presser foot" in the first 30 seconds of our conversation, I knew I was in trouble. Luckily my sister was there to translate for her and I made it through doing it by myself with only a few machine issues. Anyway, it's not perfect, but it's done and I think it turned out okay.
Next post: Adventures in cutting your own Christmas Tree with a 2 month old......stay tuned