My Tiny Sock Snowmen

I am a Neonatal ICU Nurse. Retired now, I worked for nearly 40 years in a level 3 Neonatal ICU. We were the tertiary center for the State, where the sickest of newborns were sent to receive care. We cared for infants with heart defects, surgical emergencies, inborn errors of metabolism, but the bulk of our population were premature infants. My heart was especially drawn to the extremely premature infants, otherwise known as "micro preemies". Imagine if you will, cupping a tiny life that fits neatly between your hands to gently turn them. Like a tiny bird fluttering as you contain their arms and legs to decrease stress.As you can imagine, this was an extremely stressful job, despite my love for it. And I frequently brought that stress home.

I had always been interested in art growing up. I drew and painted, taking art classes in high school and college to balance my nursing studies. Then I found crafting. Crafting became my therapy. I started making Christmas wreaths that I sold at craft fairs, along with other crafts items such as sweatshirt jackets finished with appliques and glitter puff painting. My Christmas wreaths evolved to a "themed" genre. I would find various items to support a specific theme, and group them in a wreath. I collected pinecones fallen from various trees in my neighborhood, and even a camping spot, to use in my wreaths. Using ornaments I found at craft stores, a musical wreath would have large musical notes, small sheet music "O Holy Night", musical instruments, and garland with glittery music notes on it wound through. The ribbon would also have a music staff on it as well. For a friend, I made Cowboy/Horse themed wreaths. Using burlap ribbon, there were cowboy hats, resin cowboy boots, toy horses and finished off with barbed wire garland. Once I even found small saddle ornaments to use. A Snowman wreath featured stuffed snowmen, ornaments and ribbon with snowmen on it. A real favorite of mine, were my "Outdoor men" wreaths. Those would feature maybe a large felt covered elk or moose, rustic looking ornaments, bears or ducks, Santa boot ornaments, woodsy picks and finally a twig garland wound into them, or a flannel plaid ribbon reminiscent of a hunters jacket.

Then I saw a large sock snowman at a Christmas boutique. Me being me, I said, I can make that. And so I started, filling an adult white sock with rice, tying off the segments to create the ball s of a snowman. While they were cute, they were just ok. Then I found newborn fuzzy socks. Like the tiny infants I took care of at work, these tiny creations, spoke to my soul. They also, fit in with my "reduce, reuse, recycle" sensability. I collect leftover scraps from other projects to use to decorate these little cuties. The cutout triangles from the end of ribbon used in my wreaths became a decoration on the hats of my snowmen. Pieces of fabric from other items that I deconstructed to use in other wreaths were harvested and used as well. Pieces of felt were cut out to make the carrot nose, and coal for the eyes and buttons on my snowmen. Strips of felt that I painted glitter on, became mufflers for my snowmen and snow women, with the ends cut to create a fringe. I count on my sharp Fiskars scissors to make clean cuts in the felt and ribbon I use to finish these creations. Without those clean cuts, my little sweeties would lose some of their wonder. So you can see my love for the tiny infants I used to care for is reflected in these adorable tiny snowmen.