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Christmas in July…

July 12, 2013

I totally love Christmas.  Always have.  I seem to have spent the majority of my adulthood trying to recapture the magical feeling of the Christmases of my childhood, but I’ve never managed it.  I can’t really say what year the transition happened but, at some point, I moved from excited anticipation and generalised visions of sparkliness, through drink fuelled party Christmases, and finally through to the slightly bloated ate too much turkey Christmases.  What’s amazing is I carry on trying to make the childhood Christmas happen again – and I don’t ever think that will stop, they were just so lovely.

One of the ways that I try to rev up my childhood Christmas spirit is making sure that I have enough of a build up to Christmas.  Ideally, this involves having the house, presents, tree and any jobs done the day before Christmas Eve.  Admittedly, that doesn’t always happen, but I feel that I should aim for it so that I can have at least a couple of days of watching Christmas TV to help transition my mind to Christmas.

But you can start to prepare too early.  I’ve always hated that shopping ‘talk’ about Christmas seems to start in October or even September – it kind of spoils it and makes it feel too commercial and not twinkly.  But this year, for the first time, I’ve got to be a part of that retail world – how will I handle it?  Can I avoid being a total hypocrite?

I knew that I would want to be able to offer some Christmas products this year, but wouldn’t have believed I would be working on their designs in July…  But this is really what you need to do if you have realistic hopes of making things available for people to buy for Christmas.  Many people with busy lives want to get organised early – it’s a fact.

When I was little, Christmas stockings weren’t a tradition in our house – not at all sure why – so I’ve always felt like a missed out on something, despite having lots of perfectly wonderful Christmases growing up!  So that’s how I decided what I’d like to make as my Christmas product – although I haven’t been able to settle on just one design, so am designing several.

The first stocking I’ve come up with is pictured above.  This is a Scandinavian inspired longer and slimmer stocking that I’ve made by piecing together traditional styled Christmas fabrics which I’ve then hand quilted.  It was very weird putting up Christmas decorations for the photo shoot on a hot June night, but it looks convincing!  I’ve since worked on another design in patchwork and linen, this time for a more grown up and feminine style of stocking, but it isn’t quite right yet.  I also have another felt design in the works and have been working on that earlier this week – in spite of the melting heat.

Despite how much I love Christmas, and how much fun I’m having designing the Christmas stockings, I don’t think I will put them on the web site until at least September – you can start your preparations TOO early!  I do hope that people like them though so that I can turn my little studio into a bit of a Santa production line – might help me recapture that magic from childhood…

 

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4 Comments

  • Reply Paula McElrath July 18, 2013 at 8:40 pm

    Very nice stocking!! But….those little mice are sooooo cute!!

    • Reply crimson July 19, 2013 at 7:28 am

      Thank you! There actually three different creatures, although they look very similar! There’s a bear, a rabbit and a fox. I’ve also got plans to make the female companions to these in cute little twirly skirts :o)

  • Reply anne corr July 21, 2013 at 10:30 am

    I agree about thinking Christmas can’t be considered until about November!! But your designed stocking is simply lovely. Have you got an etsy shop too?

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