This year I thought it would be really fun to make the stressful holiday season just a little bit more stressful by adding the task of making some stockings for our family!
This, obviously, wasn’t a complete necessity, but our older stockings-made at different times and of varying sizes (not to mention I never got around to actually making one for my youngest)- were making me feel flustered rather than festive so a refresh seemed in order.
I spent a lot of time looking up handmade/handsewn stocking patterns and ideas and there are some very cute ones out there. My ideal handmade stockings would be knitted, not sewn (stockings with stretch are the best!), but until I learn to knit and then get a handful of years of practice under my belt, knit stockings aren’t up my alley.
Actually, my first idea was to make stockings from knit fabric and I ordered some 100% t-shirt cotton for that very purpose. I had a plan involving English Paper Piecing, but when the fabric arrived I knew no amount of time put into the project would make the color scheme work so I decided to scrap the plan before I cut anything out. Thankfully, that fabric was used for making my kids’ Christmas jammies so it wasn’t purchased for nothing!
In searching for stocking ideas, some of my very favorite stockings were the ones made out of just one length of gorgeous Liberty London fabric. No, it would not stretch, but it would be fairly quick and easy to sew up and, as I was very much running out of time, that’s the route I decided to go.
Finding (affordable) Liberty London Christmas fabric, is trickier than I would have imagined. It was hard to find a fabric shop (and I’m talking online!) that carried more than one or two different Liberty Christmas prints. I finally found a shop on Etsy-Gardenia Fabrics-that offered a decent handful of Liberty Christmas, plus several pages worth of other Christmas fabric. There were enough options that I had a hard time narrowing things down. Not everything I chose was Liberty London, but they were all kind of within the theme of smaller repeating Christmas motifs.
I confess that I’m partial to the brighter colors that kind of tag along with the Christmas colors, but my husband is all for traditional red and green. I tried to do a conservative mix (our last stockings were much more candy colored, so even if it doesn’t seem it, this is more reserved, trust me!). I narrowed my fabric selection down to 7 pieces, so that I would have room to pick and choose seeing the fabrics in person. We were already a week and a half into December by this point, so I really had very little hope of actually receiving the fabric with time to make the stockings before Christmas, but I knew that if I didn’t order fabric now, I’d likely be in the same situation next year. So I ordered and was completely and utterly shocked when the fabric arrived only a few days later! Thank you, Gardenia Fabrics, I will definitely be ordering from you again!
I used my family’s help to decide which of the fabrics to use and after we’d narrowed down our options, I let everyone tell me which fabrics they liked the most. I was worried there would be some fighting over who got what fabric, but I’m glad to say that everyone liked at least two of the options (except for my son, who I knew would only want the blue tree fabric) and everyone ended up happy with the fabric they got.
The pattern I picked is a FREE pattern from Duckadilly, which, coincidentally, is a huge Liberty London distributor (but, I believe, they only stock Tana Lawn). I picked this pattern because it was the biggest free pattern I could find. They also have a good tutorial for how to make the stocking, as well as instructions for a striped version.
My sewing has been a bit spotty lately, and I’ll admit that I imagined this process going much more quickly than it actually did!
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish all 5 stockings before Christmas, so I prioritized making the kids’ first. I batch sewed the three of them to start. Except I sewed every last one of them the wrong way in the first step and then had to unpick every last one of them. So, I thought, I’d just finish one to make sure I had it right. And I finished it and was happy with it, but made the mistake of asking my family members if I thought it should be quilted, which they all said it should. So I unpicked it again. Not exactly crunching time while on a time crunch. Thankfully, once I got the details ironed out, things really did go quickly enough that I was able to finish all five before Christmas (not much before Christmas, mind you! I am only just posting these on Christmas Eve, after all!).
The quilting is one of the first steps in the assembly process. I don’t have much experience quilting on my sewing machine and since I was trying to be swift, I didn’t get too crazy creative. But I did manage to give every stocking a different pattern! That felt like a win. They were still very basic, but fun. I would have loved to be a little more creative, but that would require a bit more time and also possibly some different tools (someday I will get a walking foot!).
I lined each stocking with a solid color that coordinated with the main fabric. My linings all turned out bigger than their casings, but I was fudging seam allowances so that was probably to be expected. Also, I’m sure I could have made the linings tuck into the shell a little better by doing some understitching, but I don’t mind the linings peeping out just a bit either.
I had a plan to add a little bit of velvet to the top of the stocking for some contrast but when I laid everything out, I ended up liking the plain fabric just a little bit better. I did start cross stitching some miniature hoops of initials and kawaii Christmas doodads which can hopefully be attached to the hanging loop. I guarantee they will NOT be done in time to be used this Christmas, but maybe by next!
Anyway, I’m happy with how these turned out and I thought the pattern was a solid one! They aren’t the most flashy stockings but hopefully they’ll serve us at least for the next handful of years!
Pattern: Jingle Stocking from Duckadilly (tutorial found here)
Size: n/a
Alterations: none
Fabric: all quilting cottons- main from Gardenia Fabrics in 1/2 yard lengths, lining from Fabric Mart
Cost: main fabric $50; lining $15; thread, batting and some lining from stash
Would I make this pattern again?: Yes!
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