Hung by the Chimney with Care...

Our holiday sewing activities continue with the making of stockings.  Rob and I had set we bought from Target or some place that were the generic red fuzzy stockings which were cute and all, but lacking some personality.  When we bought the material for the tree skirt, we also decided to use the same fabric to make some stockings.  We thought it would be nicer to have homemade ones that we created.  Years from now we will tell our kids, "We made those the first year we were married."  And it will be all "awww" and stuff.

Having made many Halloween costumes without a pattern, I had pretty good confidence I would do it with these as well.  I used an extremely scientific measuring device to make sure I had enough fabric.  I hijacked a store stocking that was completed and flopped it onto the fabric and then flipped it and told her to cut "about there".  I think she was somewhat amused by this tactic. 

I decided to try and document this process through the wonders of digital photography. 

I didn't buy the store model I used to make the initial assessment of how much fabric I was going to need, but I think I did alright.  I mostly followed the stocking we owned (remembering to allow for seams) and made it a little taller.  The fabric we found was amazing on many counts because it was pre-quilted, two sided fabric.  That left a lot of middle steps out once again and allowed me to pretty much just sew them up.

 Then I hired an assistant.  She was more interested in the pin cushion than anything.

Although she did monitor my cutting progress pretty well.  And she kept track of my stockings after I was finished.

Ok, so maybe the cat was a pretty big distraction in my sewing project, but it was totally worth it.

The cut projects look pretty similar to the model.  I guess we are on track here.   I sewed them up with a 5/8" seam and left the tops open.  

Then I decided to cut the top folds of the stockings and add the bias tape.  That stuff is awesome!  What is not shown here is the added embellishment of the gold squiggles again.  After that, I sewed the top part into a circle and lined it up with the base to sew it together.  I am not kidding when I say, this took my 15 minutes to figure out which way to sew this on.  I couldn't for the life of me get the flipping from wrong side to right side figured out because of the fold down of the top part on the right side.  If you understand that, then A+ for you.  Eventually I made it, because I did get a finished product.

I think they turned out pretty awesome and are now completely unique items that will hopefully stay with us for many years to come.  Now if I could find stocking hooks that I actually liked, I think we would be in business!