First Testimonial on Purchases Made in my Etsy Store!

Meg (user eccomeg) purchased a 5 piece custom set of Christmas stockings from me on Etsy (please see the previous   post about flip flop stockings for pictures of her order), and with her permission I am posting what she had to say about the stockings when she received them in the mail. I had sent her a message the day after Thanksgiving to confirm receipt of her order since the USPS tracking info indicated that it had been delivered that day. This is what she replied:

Yes! Thank you!! We just got back from being away for the Thanksgiving holidays yesterday.

The box was waiting for us and I could not have been happier when I opened it. They're already hanging up! The kids loved theirs and the dog's and my husband was tickled by the hairy toes on his. My is wonderful as well!

I can't believe you made these and with such speed! Thank you so much! Every year I say I am going to make our stockings and every year I have a bag of materials that I feel guilty about so thank you!

We love them - they are too darn cute.

Take care and I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your friends and family and we wish you a relaxing and joyous holiday and New Year.

Meg

I am so happy to hear that she was so thrilled with the results of our collaboration. I always enjoy the creativity and on the fly problem solving that goes into a custom order of an item that I've never made before. I think the purchase ended well for everyone: Meg has five great stockings for her and her family and I have a new pattern to add to my repertoire.  

Christmas Stockings for Tropical Climates and Those Who Would Just Rather Be On The Beach

As a lot of you know, I have an Etsy store where I sell a lot of things that I post about in my blog here. Around this time of year, after the hand full of Viking hat orders that I get just before Halloween, I start to get requests for Christmas stockings. I don't make just any Christmas stockings. I like to make ones that are a little outside the ordinary. Some of the ones I have made in the past include monster feet, dragon feet, mermaid tails, pirate boots, victorian boots, high heel boots, ballerina slippers, wolf paws, puppy paws, and bare feet. I even made a monster ballerina stocking for my wife.

I love the challenge of coming up with designs that are new and different, and I put in all my ads to message me for custom orders. So, I wasn't altogether surprised that during the first part of November I got a message requesting a special order. At first we were discussing making bare feet stockings for a husband and wife as well as maybe a pirate boot and ballerina for a daughter a son and a puppy paw for the family pet.

 As we exchanged emails back and forth establishing exactly what was wanted, the customer sent me a picture of a stocking that she saw online and asked if I could make one like it. Pictured to the right is the original photo. I checked all over online, and I couldn't find anywhere selling them. From the blog article where the photo was posted, it looks like the person may have purchased them on a trip to Hawaii. I had seen the photo before, but I had never seriously considered how I would make the pattern.



Of course, it being me, I said, "Sure, I'll give it a go!" I spent the next week working up a pattern eyeballing the photo and making my prototype. I then sent a picture of my mockup to the customer to see if it was what she wanted. It turns out, it was. She ordered one for herself, her husband (with hairy toes for him), and her son and daughter plus the original puppy paw for her dog. It was a fun back and forth deciding on colors and themes and embroidery for the names on the cuffs. It's the first time I've gotten to use the text option on my embroidery machine. I was really looking forward to testing that out too.

I think they turned out really, really well. It's a design that I will definitely keep in my pattern book. I have never claimed to be a great pattern maker, so I'm rather proud of myself for how well they turned out just from looking at a photo.  Below are the stockings that I made for the family.
This one is for the dad, Chris.    .

This one is for the mom, Meg.

This one is for the son, Wes.

This one is for the daughter, Sophia.

And this one is for the puppy, Ozzie.