Cardinal Stocking

I'm beginning to like blue

I've mentioned elsewhere that my sister gave me a big bolt of pale blue felt. I like saturated colors as a rule: deep royal purple, brilliant fusica, lime green, bright orange---and though I like turquoise, teal and cobalt well enough, I wasn't that crazy about this color, so I made stockings out of it to get rid of it.

But as so often happens when I start in on a despised color to `get rid of it' I begin to see its possibilities and subtle charms; and so it is here. By the time I got to this stocking I realized it was a great color to showcase winter themes like snowflakes or cardinals---the one co-ordinating perfectly, the other punching up the red.

This is one of two stockings made concurrently with the scrap applique technique for the image, and I really like this look.

So now I've decided I like the color, and the stockings made with it---some five pieces finished or in progress at the current time---represent nearly half of my output, with pink a distant second at two pieces.

This piece has an innovation the scrap edging. I wasn't thrilled with the strap, which I finally made this year (the rest has been done for at least 2 years) and for which I had high hopes, but, sometimes, I just have to call it done and move on. Otherwise I'd never get finished. (Well, strictly speaking the strap needs some tassels, but I need to borrow it back to put 'em on. I have one that would be just perfect, which just goes to show that sometimes, it's okay to make things without knowing how they'll be used---I made this tassel several years ago, without any idea of its eventual home...)