Christmas in July!

The second (and final, I might add) needlepoint stocking is complete!!

Almost ten years in the making...

This is kind of a long story, so, please bear with me.

The older daughter was born in February 1993.  By Christmas that year, her paternal grandmother made a needlepoint stocking for her.  It was lovely, thoughtful, and very special.

The younger daughter was born three days before Christmas in 2000. As wonderful and talented as my mother-in-law was, she did not complete a stocking for her in three days; however, by Christmas 2001, the baby had one all her own, and it was every bit as lovely, thoughtful, and special as her sister's.

Here is a photo of them in 2004:

(Older daughter's on the left and younger on the right.)

Unfortunately, on July 4, 2006, our house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Everyone got out and there was no loss of life, but we basically lost everything.  The neighbors took us in until we could secure a place to stay while we rebuilt.

On the heels of one tragedy, followed another. 

My mother-in-law died just weeks after the fire.

The stockings were gone, and so was she.

In addition to a myriad of other things, i.e., finding a place to live, creating normalcy for the family, rebuilding a house from the slab up, and replacing everything we had, I got it in my head I needed to make each of the girls a needlepoint stocking in honor of their grandmother and all the love she poured into the original ones.

With that in mind, I bought the hand-painted canvases and had the nice ladies at Yarn Barn in San Antonio select all the threads and fibers for me. I spent a small fortune on them.

I worked on these in fits and starts, but just could not get anywhere with them.

Although, I thought about them... a lot.  In March 2014, I worked on them a bit.  Last summer, the younger one asked me to finish it for her, and I was finally able to push through and get it done.

Since then, I have worked diligently on the second one.

The deadline to have it made into a stocking for this Christmas is September 1st!

YAY!!

Now, I can finally move on with my life...