Stocking Finished!

Last night I put the finishing touches on Evelyn's stocking, and here it is hanging on our stocking tree...It actually turned out to be larger than some of our other stockings since I added that other ball of red yarn. The needle-felting took a few hours to complete. (I had to take breaks to feed the baby, that's how I know this. Otherwise, I would have been concentrating too hard to notice the time flying by.) Needle-felting is a technique using a small barbed needle to bind natural fibers together. I started by shaping the snowflake on the foam felting mat, before carefully placing it on the stocking. Then I put the felting mat inside the stocking so I wouldn't accidently bind the fibers from the back of the stocking to the front. Since I don't have the Clover Needle-Felting Tool yet, this was a careful and arduous process using one needle at a time to jab through the wool and trying to avoid jabbing my fingers instead. I used the largest needle to tack the basic shape down, the medium one to make the snowflake more defined, and then went over the whole thing with the finest needle to clean up the edges and tuck in stray fibers. I'm really satisfied at how it came out, so I think I'll be brave enough to try other felting projects from now on. :) Here's a closer look:Maybe next year I'll get started early enough to knit stockings for both boys!