Life is back to normal. All of the Christmas glitz and glitter is packed away and my house is back in order. A natural tree is lovely but oh the work; remembering to water it daily, all the vacuuming as it sheds worse than a Saint Bernard and it displaced my favourite sitting/hooking spot in front of the window. Our living room is small so there is only one place to put the tree and then we have to work around it like an insensitive lodger; from the far end of the sofa, I could barely see the TV through the outstretching limbs! Several times I had to prune it back a few inches so it didn’t obstruct the view of the screen. We usually go for skinny, but this year we got to the tree yard late and the pickings weren’t slim, pardon the pun, so we had to take a fuller bodied one that was really too large for the room and the lights and ornaments we had to adorn it
When I was small we went Christmas tree hunting in the woods, a family outing where we all decided on the ‘one’ and then dad chopped it down and we dragged it to the car, tied it on the roof and made our way home; all part of the Christmas magic. Now trees are precut and leaning up against a fence, a trailer or in tubes in the ground, and you have to stand them up and turn them around to view from all sides to select the one that best suits your idea of what the perfect tree looks like.
I’m not a Charlie Brown tree kind of girl. I want one expertly pruned and shapely without bare spots or double tops. I want a natural green fir, not one with brownish tips that looks like it’s been starved of water or a tinted one in that nasty bluish green spray. I’ve never desired a pine tree and only got stuck with a cat spruce once, the smell emanating from it was a close cousin to a litter box, insuring a quick whiff of any tree before we pay the man.
I must admit the romance of finding the perfect tree, bringing it home and decorating it has its magical moments and tugs on lovely Christmas memories from childhood. But, and there’s always the but, after it shares its wonderful essence and the season is over, I’m saddened as I disrobe it of beautiful glass ornaments, unstring the lights and prepare to remove her limbs to make it easier to get it outside without shedding its needles from pillar to post. As I snip off the branches I mourn it. A tree is a living thing and here I’m dismembering it limb by limb like some sort of coniferous serial killer. Sure the tree doesn’t cry out but it weeps sap that permeates the air like an aromatic scream.
It doesn’t seem fair to pluck it from nature for such a short duration in the name of tradition. Every year I swear I’ll invest in a synthetic one, they look so real now you hardly don’t know the difference and they come prewired with LED bulbs, eliminating the most exasperating element of decorating a tree, fighting with tangled strings of lights and burned out bulbs.
Of course, the scent isn’t there but I’d be happy knowing I saved a real tree. I’m weird I know. Having feelings for inanimate objects leaks into everything I do. There’s a boat right now that fell over in the wind on our Government Wharf and every time I drive by it I almost cry for its misfortune. This boat isn’t used in the sailing season, she sits on the mooring ball year after year, without a sail and now she’s forever broken, lonely and cold, it almost breaks my heart. Her mast is twisted and bent, lying across the ground snapped like a twig, and her keel is cracked. Such a thing of beauty and pleasure, now a pile of plastic, wood and scrap metal.
I didn’t realize it at the time but I fought hooking over the holidays. Every time I thought I should dig out my stocking and pull a few loops I found excuses not to. Normally I hook while watching Netflix but I sat there wasting time with my hands at my sides instead of working. It didn’t dawn on me until after the tree was taken down and my favourite chair was repositioned in front of the living room window to the why I didn’t hook. I like this particular chair; it fits my rump nicely and has enough stiffness to sit up straight. My legs are short so it’s low enough I don’t need a footstool, everything feels right, fits right and allows for hours of hooking comfort.
So the tree displaced my spot and chair and my princess subconscious didn’t like it, so it found plenty of excuses to leave the hooking in the cupboard. Funny how we have preferences, habits, and rhythms to lock us into the way we do things. I guess that’s where the old dog and new tricks thing came about.
So now I’m working on my Hooker Stocking again. Hooking the pillow for a friend for Christmas meant I had no time to work on my own stocking so Santa didn’t have anything to fill. A lump of coal might have gotten the light parchment background dirty so I’ll have to be extra nice to avoid that this year.
I’m really happy to report that others have been hooking stockings as well. Three photos have come in to excite me, one all the way from Japan. I didn’t design this one but Yoshiho Nara has graciously offered to add this pattern to our long list of available designs and I couldn’t be more excited. She is not only a beautiful rug hooker, her designs are delightful and I am proud to list them on the website.
The other two are the Chihuahua and Cardinal patterns. We now have over 60 stocking designs! There are very few that haven’t been hooked either by me or others but I’m hopeful they will all get done in the future. I love scrolling down the page, each one is so different there is enough variety to suit all, but if you want something custom designed I would be over the moon to come up with a new pattern for you to add to the collection. Smaller projects like these are quick to whip up and a delight to offer to your family, a perfect project for grandma to make for the grandbabies, a gift for hubby or self, an heirloom that will be used each year, hung with anticipation in hopes that Santa will fill it with wonderful goodies. And, they are a perfect size, not too big to cost a fortune to fill.
When I was small we went Christmas tree hunting in the woods, a family outing where we all decided on the ‘one’ and then dad chopped it down and we dragged it to the car, tied it on the roof and made our way home; all part of the Christmas magic. Now trees are precut and leaning up against a fence, a trailer or in tubes in the ground, and you have to stand them up and turn them around to view from all sides to select the one that best suits your idea of what the perfect tree looks like.
I’m not a Charlie Brown tree kind of girl. I want one expertly pruned and shapely without bare spots or double tops. I want a natural green fir, not one with brownish tips that looks like it’s been starved of water or a tinted one in that nasty bluish green spray. I’ve never desired a pine tree and only got stuck with a cat spruce once, the smell emanating from it was a close cousin to a litter box, insuring a quick whiff of any tree before we pay the man.
I must admit the romance of finding the perfect tree, bringing it home and decorating it has its magical moments and tugs on lovely Christmas memories from childhood. But, and there’s always the but, after it shares its wonderful essence and the season is over, I’m saddened as I disrobe it of beautiful glass ornaments, unstring the lights and prepare to remove her limbs to make it easier to get it outside without shedding its needles from pillar to post. As I snip off the branches I mourn it. A tree is a living thing and here I’m dismembering it limb by limb like some sort of coniferous serial killer. Sure the tree doesn’t cry out but it weeps sap that permeates the air like an aromatic scream.
It doesn’t seem fair to pluck it from nature for such a short duration in the name of tradition. Every year I swear I’ll invest in a synthetic one, they look so real now you hardly don’t know the difference and they come prewired with LED bulbs, eliminating the most exasperating element of decorating a tree, fighting with tangled strings of lights and burned out bulbs.
Of course, the scent isn’t there but I’d be happy knowing I saved a real tree. I’m weird I know. Having feelings for inanimate objects leaks into everything I do. There’s a boat right now that fell over in the wind on our Government Wharf and every time I drive by it I almost cry for its misfortune. This boat isn’t used in the sailing season, she sits on the mooring ball year after year, without a sail and now she’s forever broken, lonely and cold, it almost breaks my heart. Her mast is twisted and bent, lying across the ground snapped like a twig, and her keel is cracked. Such a thing of beauty and pleasure, now a pile of plastic, wood and scrap metal.
I didn’t realize it at the time but I fought hooking over the holidays. Every time I thought I should dig out my stocking and pull a few loops I found excuses not to. Normally I hook while watching Netflix but I sat there wasting time with my hands at my sides instead of working. It didn’t dawn on me until after the tree was taken down and my favourite chair was repositioned in front of the living room window to the why I didn’t hook. I like this particular chair; it fits my rump nicely and has enough stiffness to sit up straight. My legs are short so it’s low enough I don’t need a footstool, everything feels right, fits right and allows for hours of hooking comfort.
So the tree displaced my spot and chair and my princess subconscious didn’t like it, so it found plenty of excuses to leave the hooking in the cupboard. Funny how we have preferences, habits, and rhythms to lock us into the way we do things. I guess that’s where the old dog and new tricks thing came about.
So now I’m working on my Hooker Stocking again. Hooking the pillow for a friend for Christmas meant I had no time to work on my own stocking so Santa didn’t have anything to fill. A lump of coal might have gotten the light parchment background dirty so I’ll have to be extra nice to avoid that this year.
I’m really happy to report that others have been hooking stockings as well. Three photos have come in to excite me, one all the way from Japan. I didn’t design this one but Yoshiho Nara has graciously offered to add this pattern to our long list of available designs and I couldn’t be more excited. She is not only a beautiful rug hooker, her designs are delightful and I am proud to list them on the website.
The other two are the Chihuahua and Cardinal patterns. We now have over 60 stocking designs! There are very few that haven’t been hooked either by me or others but I’m hopeful they will all get done in the future. I love scrolling down the page, each one is so different there is enough variety to suit all, but if you want something custom designed I would be over the moon to come up with a new pattern for you to add to the collection. Smaller projects like these are quick to whip up and a delight to offer to your family, a perfect project for grandma to make for the grandbabies, a gift for hubby or self, an heirloom that will be used each year, hung with anticipation in hopes that Santa will fill it with wonderful goodies. And, they are a perfect size, not too big to cost a fortune to fill.
 |  |
| Chihuahua Stocking hooked by Robin Stewart  | Cardinal Stocking hooked by Lynda Johnston  |
Designed and hooked by Yoshiho Nara, Japan
Yoshiho's Bunny (left) and Yoshiho's Kitty (right)
Beautiful designs and beautifully hooked! And how about that bunny tail, clever!
Yoshiho's Bunny (left) and Yoshiho's Kitty (right)
Beautiful designs and beautifully hooked! And how about that bunny tail, clever!
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