A few caveats for today’s Christmas craft – first up, it’s not as easy as some of the others I’ve blogged about. You’re going to need a skill level or two up from slapping the good ol' Clag around on construction paper. It’s also going to be mighty difficult if you don’t have a sewing machine or an iron. Mind you, if you do have a sewing machine, all you need to know is how to sew a straight stitch.
Secondly my photos are not great. I was tired, it was late and honestly the lighting was not brilliant. But given that I was making these at ten in the night on the night before Christmas Eve, I think I can be forgiven for dodgy photos. Honestly, you’re lucky I documented any of it at all. So, let’s get to it.
For this project you will need:
60cm of felt in your dominant colour (I went pink for Charlotte and blue for James)
Coloured fabrics to suit your colour theme (for James I went for vibrant blue and red with a pirate flavour and for Charlotte I went with softer pink, purple and yellow fabrics with hearts, butterflies and flowers)
Various braids that match your theme (I’ve chosen sequined braid, ribbon and bright red decorative braid)
20mm Ribbon to edge your stocking.
Decorative buttons
Sewing Machine
Scissors
Thread
First up, you need to create a template. Basically grab some paper and draw a stocking shape onto it. When you’re satisfied with the shape, cut it out.
Then place your template over your felt and cut a stocking shape from your felt.
Pick your first piece of fabric and place it onto the felt. Sew it down on both sides.
In this case I used an embroidery machine to embroider the names of my children on some plain fabric to start me off. If you don’t have access to this sort of machine but still want your child’s name on the stocking you can either cut the letters from some contrasting felt and sew it on with thick cotton down the middle of your letters or you can use iron-on transfer letters which retail for about $1 each.
All you do from here is make strips of brightly coloured fabric (either a strip from one fabric or do what I’ve done and sew a couple of different bits of fabric together to make a strip. Place the first strip face down on top of your original piece of fabric and sew a line a quarter of an inch (6mm) in from the edge. Make sure your original stitch is behind your new stitching.
Use an iron to press the new piece of fabric back flat against your felt and continue to add strips at different angles until all your felt is covered.
Then flip your felt over and trim the fabrics back to the felt stocking shape. Now is a good time to sew your strips of braid/sequins/ribbon on and add any decorative buttons.
When your front panel is finished, cut a second piece of felt from your template. Sew your ribbon around the whole edge of the stocking except for the top edge. Make sure most of the ribbon hangs over the edge (so maybe 5-8mm of ribbon should be lying on the felt with more than 1cm extending out past the edge of the felt).
Place the front piece with the coloured fabric on top of the backing felt, fold the ribbon over and stitch through all the layers. This binds your stocking together and finishes the edge so it won’t fray. Finally fold the remaining ribbon in half over the top edge and sew all the way around so the top edges of your stocking are bound nicely and finished.
The last thing to do is use your ribbon to make a nice big loop (big enough to go over a door handle, for example) inside your stocking at the top corner. This completes your stocking.
Each stocking took me about an hour but my kids adored them and it was absolutely worth all the pain the binding caused me.
Come Christmas morning Santa had left little treats for them. As I did the dishes I realised that I hadn't heard the little Viking for quite some time. I turned to discover him sitting on the floor behind me. He'd managed to nab his stocking and was plonked down in the middle of his loot attempting to devour all chocolate and other miscellaneous sugar-related items before he was discovered.
Three days later and he's still bringing me the empty stocking to indicate that he wants something sweet. Very cute.
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