Bas de Noël avec une étiquette de long

Bas de Noël is something my little one does at her French school for Christmas. Little hands sew with big effort - using a special heavy cross stitcher (for the non sharpened point), fighting with the extremely long, long  thread, sweating and chatting with the other kids, but determined to finish and make every stitch count, imprinting memories, excitement and love. These anxious sparkling eyes just urged me to help her make one Bas de Noël for her teacher and sew a tag-a-long for it.

For the label, I used felt and backstitched the to: - for: names. For the tag-a-long, I stitched the "Bon Noël" words over a checked cotton piece of fabric, lined with thin felt for avoiding a flat and boring look. "Joyeux  Noël" is a much more appropriate and popular felicitation, but I chose "Bon Noël" for matching my ratio - size of the tag : size of the lettres.

There is nothing better than a handmade present for Christmas. It is even better when the sock is filled with treats. 

We filled it with round cookies. The sock is so skinny, that we baked a small rounded honey cookies that I posted in my Folk Christmas post.

We made a cream bird and filled it lightly with high-volume fibre felt for relief appearance. 

Additional fabric cones filled with chocolate are a great complement to the sock.

Joyeux  Noël, tout le monde!

Folk Christmas

Everything that pushes me travel back in time makes me happy. I wish I was born in 60s, then I wish to travel to 18th century. I have some preferences to old traditions, and strongly believe that values were higher and more respected in the time before us. 

I am in a mood for a folk Christmas, only because I remember my Christmas two years ago - all the hopes, expectations and believes we wished for,  from the retrospecting glance today:

I like the patches on this guy's "coat". How cold he must be, but still smiling...

I am so grateful we still consider Santa as a sleight traveler, reindeer powered. I wouldn't stitch him on an airplane. Maybe my passion to the late 18th century could vision this famous gentlemen on a dirigible but nothing more modern than that ... 

... and the music from the angels' voices, and the freedom to feel happier in this season of the year, give me nice and calm sense of completion...

When I discovered Brian Jackins' collection, I was swallowed by the simplicity of these projects. How powerful impression they built in me, with their simple look. I loved them from the first sight and I stitched them with such a heart ...

Back in time, my grandparents used to burn a log at Christmas. It was essential to burn the biggest, oldest and probably the one with the most memories log. It had to burn all night long during the night before Christmas, and to be "alive" at Christmas morning. Christmas tree is a symbol that we carry for centuries - it has changed, certainly, in time, but its purpose to gather family around still lives.

The old fashioned spicy cookies were made weeks before Christmas. The more they aged, the better. People used to fast very strictly at the time - eating mostly vegetables, potatoes and rice. But nothing stopped them from preparing the cookies and special breads with lard and/or butter. All the treats were passionately kept for the Christmas celebration.

Spicy Honey Cookies

My roots barely keep an old tradition: to collect treats after Christmas. All we need is a bag ...

There are many more projects from "Folk Christmas", Brian Jackins. I stopped my eye on these ones, I shared today with you. Maybe one day I will finish the whole collection...

Merry Folk Christmas everyone! Let us never forget what Christmas is about...