Tiny Christmas Stockings, and Darning

 I've completed stitching three pair of tiny felt Christmas Stockings, which were handed out at last month's quilt club meeting.  Each set of stockings came with an extra strip of felt.  These will be hung on the display of Christmas Trees in December, our club's entry in the Avenue of Trees.

Red, white and green

After putting my thinking cap on, I had worked out how I wanted to decorate them.  They are tiny, so keep it simple, I decided.  Sadly, I failed miserably with blanket stitch, so just did running stitch instead.  I'm sure it's not that hard, but I just couldn't get my head around it.  Maybe I'll ask the Sew Wots to show me sometime.  With a bit of simple stitching, a couple of buttons, and ribbon hanging loops stitched on, they were done.

White, green and red, and I found one tiny Father Christmas looking for a new home

I can't remember when I last did some darning, but I had a hand knitted sock emergency.  Most of my cozy thick socks are knitted with 8 ply wool, ply 4 ply sock yarn, and these are hole free, so far.  But I did knit a couple of pairs using 12 ply wool in the early days,  and one of these pairs developed a hole under the heel.  There was only one thing to do, try to darn the hole up

That's no good, is it.

I had a very small ball of grey acrylic which toned in quite well, and  used that.  No darning mushroom though - I can remember these from my childhood when my Mother expertly darned socks.  I improvised and slipped a glass into the sock, and started working.  I don't think I'll win any prizes for my darning prowess, but it did the job, so I'm pleased with that.

Finished is better than perfect!

I've just finished another library book, Fallen, by Karin Slaughter.  I've read a lot of her books, but missed this older one somehow.  It features one of my favourite detectives, Will Trent, together with Dr Sara Linton, Will's partner Faith and boss Amanda Wagner.  This was such a gripping story, and I hadn't worked out the who and why as the tale progressed, as it hurtled to the climatic ending.

Just finished, I could hardly put it down

I have seen the Will Trent series on TV and was quite disappointed with the casting.  According to the books, Will is white, tall and lean, with a runner's body shape, and the TV show featured a darker, maybe Mexican character.  Rather like casting Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, readers all know Jack is a big, powerful, strong  man, so I refused to go and watch the two movies featuring  the much smaller Tom Cruise.  Guess I like things to stay the same.