As we unearthed all our Christmas decorations this year I realized we had a stocking crisis. There are now 5 people in our family and we only had 3 stockings and they were hideous.
The only solution to having cute, personalized, and coordinating stockings for our whole family was to make some! So it went on the Do It Now list.
Here’s what you need to make stockings for your family:
SUPPLIES
- 1/4 – 1/3 yard Christmas quilting fabric for each stocking (if you do several you’ll have enough left over to mix and match for the cuffs – I used fabric from several different designers, the red polka dot fabric print is Michael Miller Ta Dot)
- 1/4 yard lining fabric (I used solid white)
- solid colored scraps for toes and names
- 1/2 yard medium weight fusible interfacing for each stocking (interfacing is usually not very wide and isn’t a double width so you need quit a bit, but it’s inexpensive)
- coordinating ribbon
Some tools I use and recommend:
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Cut 4 stockings – 2 from quilting fabric and another 2 from lining fabric.
I used this pattern from this tutorial and traced around it to make it a little bigger). Be sure to cut a front and a back by making sure the fabric is either right sides together or wrong sides together.
2. Create a toe and heel pattern by tracing those portions of the stocking pattern onto another piece of paper. Or wing it.
You can do a heel and toe on the front and back sides of the stocking, but I just did the front side. No one is ever going to see the back side, so it wasn’t worth the extra work…
3. After cutting out the toe and heel, press the straight edge under 1/4″.
4. Pin toe and heel pieces to the stocking front piece
5. And sew to the stocking front.
6. With a Sharpie or other marker (fabric or otherwise) trace the stocking pattern onto a double layer of interfacing. Cut 1/4″ inside the line so the interfacing is within the seam allowances of the actual stocking pieces.
7. Press the interfacing pieces to the stocking front and back and sew, right sides together and making sure the toe and heel pieces are laying flat in the middle, with a 1/4″ seam.
Sew the stocking lining together now also using a 1/2″ seam and trim the seam allowances down to 1/4″. Don’t turn – leave lining right side in.
8. Notch the curved seams.
9. And press seams open. A mini iron is much easier to use on these small seams, but a regular one will work too.
10. Turn stocking right side out and insert lining into stocking. Trim across the top edge so the lining and stocking match up. (You could baste around the top to keep the lining and stocking pieces from shifting but you don’t have to.)
10. Cut the cuff pieces – I cut mine 7.5″ x 15.25″ but your pattern probably won’t be exactly the same size as mine, so for the HEIGHT decide how tall you want the cuff to be, multiply that number by 2 and add 1/2″.
For the WIDTH, measure the FINISHED width of the top of your stocking (minus seam allowances), multiply by 2 and add 1/2″.
Cut the cuff piece and press in half the long way and then in half again the short way.
11. If you’re going to applique a name on, position it just as you see above – in the top left quadrant, centered from the outside edge and right side crease and about 3/4″ above the bottom crease.
(To learn how to cut fabric letters with a Cricut or other die cutting machine, read my Cricut Cutting Fabric tutorial here.)
12. Sew the cuff into a tube by folding it in half and sewing a 1/4″ inch seam there on the right hand side in the picture.
13. Fold the cuff so wrong sides are together with raw edges matching up. Cut a 5″ piece of ribbon and pin to the seam. (I want the ribbon to be on the left side because my stockings are going to face to the right.)
14. Find the halfway point directly across from the seam and mark with a pin.
15. Insert the cuff inside the stocking with the name on the outside and matched up to the front of the stocking. So from outside layer in you should have stocking front, lining front, cuff front with the name, cuff back. (The little ribbon piece should be in between the stocking/lining layer and the cuff and it should be pointing down into the stocking.)
Match the side seams on the stocking with the side seam of the cuff on the left side and the pin you used to mark the halfway point on the right.
16. Press seams and turn cuff to outside.
All done! I made 5 in just a few hours and everything went smooth after I sewed “Dad” on upside down…I’ll fix it someday.
Now I can easily add stockings that coordinate as we have more children. I love how these turned out!
Merry Christmas!!!
More Christmas Tutorials of Interest:
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
{ 2 trackbacks }