Last year it was felted hearts,

This year it's stockings -- elvish-styled stockings.

I don't know if it was DS's insistence that I read all four of Paolini's Inheritance Cycle books in late November or just one of those things, but when I sat down to make an ornament for my guild's annual exchange an elf bootie is what I kept coming back to no matter how many other ideas I tossed around. That's pretty much the same thing that happened last year when I made Grinch-styled hearts, from the same felted wool sweater...


Used a stocking template I found in a book, Sweater Renewal by Sharon Franco Rothschild, but have since run across Rothschild's original template in a November 2009 post on the Etsy blog. You can find her version and a link to a pdf including the template at this link.

Even though I think I was channeling elves this year instead of Grinch hearts, I couldn't seem to let go of the color combos that still remind me a bit of Dr. Seuss and the Grinch...

So far I've made three, one for the guild ornament exchange, one for the local homeschool support group exchange and one for my aunt.  Each is a little different as I played with the embroidery stitches but they all share the same overall shape and the feather-stitching (plus beads down the front) following the seam lines.  I used a combination of regular DMC embroidery floss and pearl cottons.

And perhaps it's more than just Paolini's books influencing the elfish choice this year. It also could be I was influenced by these little guys who live in my corner china press. They were my mom's when I was little and she gave them to me a few years ago -- I still like them.

They were always so cheerful-looking when I'd spot them under one of her flower arrangements or just hanging out on a shelf somewhere. I couldn't pass them up when she offered.