My Heart Sister's Stocking

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 "When a friend looks out a window of your life, she sees the same world you do.  Your happiness is her happiness. Your success is her success.  Such a friend is the best sort to have.  Every good thing multiplies when it is shared by two with the same heart."  (Treasured Friends by Heather Harpham Kopp and Sandra Kuck)

Vintage Red Work Cross Stitch on linen.

Friends are precious treasures to be cherished.  Those friends who truly do "see the world as you do" and consider your blessings and trials to be their own are rarer than the finest diamonds.  I am lucky to be blessed with a precious handful of such friends.  Jana is one of those jewels in my life.  She is the sister of my heart.  We have been friends since our freshman year of high school.  She is the friend I've had the longest.

I made and filled this stocking as my gift to her this year.  I used two vintage (really antique) small table cloths.  One was a heavier weave linen with Red Work Cross Stitch and the other was a finer weave linen with the most amazing handwork.  Both cloths were stained and had holes so I didn't feel guilty cutting them up to make something new.  I used an old cotton bed sheet for the lining and dainty whipstitch piping.  The back of the stocking is made with a pretty holiday print cotton fabric.  

Lovely!

Check out that gorgeous hand satin stitched scallop work around the perimeter!

The initial tag is made with some of the left-over fabric and attached with red cording, red jingle bells, and three little silver charms.  The one on the tag says 'love' and there is a tiny teapot(she LOVES tea) and a little "J".

Jana loves the stocking and has made me promise to make one as much like it as possible but with the initial "K" for Karen.  She wants to start a new tradition of filling stockings for each other!  She lives in Georgia so when I visit her this summer we will trade stockings so that we are ready for Christmas 2013.  I love it!

The back of the stocking.  My husband like this side the best!
 "I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." 

 John 15:15