Brittany FitzgeraldFollow

Date Collected

11-30-2018

Place item was collected

Logan, UT

Informant

Myself

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

My name is Brittany Fitzgerald. I am a 19-year-old undergraduate in my third semester at Utah State University and intend to double major in English and Anthropology. I was born and raised in Davis County, Utah, and spent a year living in Livermore, California when I was 8. I was raised Mormon, in a large extended family, nearly all of whom are also active members. My favorite hobbies are handicrafts, writing, and drawing.

Context

Everyone on my dad's side of the family has a handmade stocking made by his mother, my Oma- their six children, the spouses, and all of the grandchildren. They are based on a set of counted cross-stitch patterns my Oma purchased years and years ago, but most of them don't follow the exact patterns, instead taking motifs from them and using them to create new designs.

Text

[Five stockings, each in it's own image, followed by one of them hanging in a line on our mantle. Each has its owner's name spelled out along the top in block letters. The two stockings belonging to my parents are heavily stitched, while the kid stockings have a small number of motifs and the body of the stocking is covered in a vertical pattern.

William: a kitchen scene, crowded with knick-knacks, including a cow pull toy and pots warming on the stove. There are Christmas decorations all over the kitchen.

Michelle: scene shows a bedroom, with a window showing snowfall outside. There are many dolls on the bed, and one in a carriage on the floor, and bears having a tea party on the floor. There's a stocking full of treats hanging from the bedpost.

Brittany: there's a pink ribbon in a bow stitched along the top, and just below the name is an angel in a blue dress. The body of the stocking is covered with lines dividing rows of pink flowers, like an old lady wallpaper design.

Matthew: Three motifs on separate pieces of cloth dangle from the top, obscuring the name. They are pull toys that look like a pig, a sheep, and a cow (the same cow as on William's stocking). There are red vertical lines spaced widely, with rows of hearts in between.

Joshua: there is a little pink bow above the name and a firetruck centered below the name. The pattern is doubled blue lines with red dots between.]

Texture

My Oma decided to make these stockings when her children started moving out. She bought yards and yards of AIDA cloth in a brownish-taupe color, and a fine cotton blend in maroon; I'm fairly certain that if she had run out she wouldn't have been able to find a match, especially for the AIDA. There are about two-dozen grandkids, and my Oma was behind for a long time, since this is such a time-consuming project and a lot of the grandkids are tightly spaced. My dad is the oldest, so my family had a completed set long before most of the cousins. She finished the full set (assuming that no one has any more kids) in 2017.

Course

ENGL 2210

Instructor

Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G8: Textiles

EAD Number

7.1.1.14

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