Crafty Mama, Part II

Some of you may remember that I made Maggie's Christmas stocking several years ago, in time for her second Christmas.  After the rather long and time consuming process, I decided to commit to making a Christmas stocking for all my future children as well.  It was only fair, right?  Well, even before Ben was born (and we thought we were probably having another girl), I went online and found a stocking kit that I loved.  It was cross stitch, and I thought, hey, I know how to do cross stitch!  It was something different than Maggie's and looked adorable, so I ordered it.  My mom brought it out to Kenya in June of 2011, when Ben was three months old.  I didn't look at it until August, when I opened up t he package and realized that I had probably gotten a bit more than I had bargained for.  This was going to be a LOT of work.  But I plunged in...

Fortunately, I had set the bar low and hadn't finished Maggie's stocking until her SECOND Christmas.  Christmas 2012 came and went, and here was the state of Ben's stocking (it's on the far right):

Finally, it was do or die time.  I wanted to bring a finished stocking to France, not a bag of thread and work left to be done.  So I finished up the stocking last week, hurray!  Eric's mom very graciously took time to help me cut and machine sew the stocking into a stocking-like shape.  She was more stressed out than me, actually. :)  Hopefully this stocking is something that Ben will love and keep for the rest of his life.  I estimate maybe 100 hours on this project.  If a doctor on average can earn $100/hour, that makes this stocking worth approximately $10,025 (the kit cost $25).  Just about what it would have cost to buy one. :)