A gift for a far away friend

Quaker Fragments Stocking by Blackbird Designs (March Leaflet)
Stitched two over two on R&R Reproductions 30 ct. Alabaster
with Crescent Colors Ruby Slippers and WDW Monkey Grass

Would you believe I had this piece stitched and waiting to be finished since, oh.... AUGUST? Yep. August. I knew I was going to stitch and finish this piece for my friend Michele, but I didn't think it would take me so long to do the actual finish finishing. Naturally, I had to be difficult and not follow the finishing instructions in the leaflet. Oh no. I had to do thing *my* way. And by my way, I mean pleading with my husband who is far more patient and diligent than I am to trace out the cardboard and assemble the stocking for me. I did get him to trace the cardboard and cut it out, but I was on my own for lacing the stocking onto the cardboard.

A little tugging, a little clipping, and a little cursing, and it was done. Just barely done, but done before Christmas. Which is not to say it arrived before Christmas, but I did mail it out before Christmas - perhaps about a week or so before the big day. Two weeks after Christmas, I still hadn't heard anything about it from Michele, so I decided to forgo a surprise and ask her if she had received any envelopes from me. She had, in fact, not. I was devastated. Everything else I had mailed on the same day had made it to its destination, and I was psyching myself up to stitch and finish this piece again. I was not looking forward to lacing the stocking onto cardboard again, but the actual stitching of the piece was fun. Luckily for me, Michele emailed me a few days later to let me know she had received the envelope and was just thrilled with the ornament and the additional tokens I had sent her.

You see, Michele is a major Seattle Seahawks fan, and I am a Cowboys fan, so we give each other good natured ribbing throughout football season. I sent her my interpretation of her beloved Seahawk's colors in overdyed floss, something I imagine would either frighten or amuse the big burly football players. You can see the colors here on her blog.

And there's a story behind the colors I selected for the stocking itself. Michele loves the color red, so I knew I was going to work that in there, but I didn't want to do two shades of red. I pulled a few shades of red that caught my eye from the overdyed racks in my LNS, but when I saw the name Ruby Slippers, I knew that was the color I was going to use. Michele is a big Wizard of Oz fan as well, so how could I not? As for the green, I picked a green to coordinate with the red, not by color name. It did, however, work out perfectly for me as my chosen color is Monkey Grass, or as I like to call it, Flying Monkeys. Yeah. I'm cool like that.