Christmas Stocking for Asher

Hello everyone!

I know it's way past Christmas, but I wanted to share

this with y'all.
This is a tough post for me to write, but I want to do

it anyway.

When our son, Jaryd was born in 1992 we named our friends

Zoe and Dennis as his Godparents.

Uncle Dennis has always been special to Jaryd and all of us.

This is Jaryd with Dennis almost 30 yrs ago.

Now move forward in time.
Our grandson was born this past June and

Jaryd and Sara named him 
Asher Dennis

after Jaryd's Uncle Dennis.

He was very honored to have Asher named after him.

Now let's jump ahead a few months.

Dennis had cancer almost 3 yrs ago and had been 

doing fabulous.  Unfortunately, it came back

with a vengeance this past summer.
He started immuno-therapy, but 

the tumors continued to spread and grow.

We knew he was terminal, but didn't know how

long he had to live.

In early December I took our grandchildren,

Marie and Asher to visit Uncle Dennis.

Aunt Zoe got some great pictures of Asher with

Dennis.

Now for the crafty reason for this post.

When there is a new addition to our immediate family,

I make a Christmas stocking for them.

The last one I made was our son in law's.

Brad wears pajama pants all the time,

so I made his from pajama pants.
I hadn't decided what to make Asher's stocking from, 

but Sara came up with a wonderful idea.

Since Asher was named after Dennis, how about getting

something from him to make it out of.

Dennis loved his Hawaiian shirts, so 
I called and told him what I wanted to do and asked

if he would part with one of his shirts for Asher.

He gave me the shirt above.

What made this even more special, is that this

shirt is the one that Kelsie and Brad gave him from

their honeymoon in May.

I traced one of our other stockings onto 

some packing paper, cut out the pattern and 

cut the stocking from the front of the shirt.

Once I had it cut out, I sewed it together.

Turned it right side out and I had 

Asher's stocking.

I did add fusible interfacing inside the

stocking to give it more stability,

but I left the top part without the facing, so the top buttons

could be open, to give room to stuff it.

I had removed the pocket and I sewed it back on

so it was wrapping around the side of the stocking.

I added a loop to hang the stocking,

but I wanted to do one more thing.

I added a pocket inside the stocking and

made a little envelope with the same fabric.

I wrote a letter to Asher about the stocking and about

Uncle Dennis.
Dennis, did not live to celebrate Christmas with us,

he passed away on December 18th.

We all miss him terribly and are still dealing with our

grief.  

Asher will always have this Christmas stocking and the letter

to remind him of Uncle Dennis and what he meant to us all.

Thanks for stopping by today and hearing about 

this stocking and why I created it.
I hope you have been inspired in some way and

will come visit again soon.

Until then,

make something in tribute to someone you love.