More Christmas Crafts: Felt Stockings!

I can't believe its been a month since my last post! Preparing Christmas gifts definitely got the better of me this year: I made a felted purse for my mom (my first felted item ever that I had to re-knit and re-felt due to the first one shrinking too much in one direction), a scarf for my kid brother and aunt, and hats for my other brother and boyfriend. They all turned out really well; hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon.

In the meantime I have pictures of the stockings that I made for myself and my boyfriend. This is the first Christmas that I spent away from my childhood homes and in my own apartment. After finding myself faced with the realization that I wouldn't have Christmas morning access to my childhood Christmas stocking, I decided to make one.

I had a hard time finding pre-cut felt that was big enough for making a good sized stocking. Then I discovered that fabric stores carry felt by the both, something that I had never thought of before, mostly because I'm new to sewing. So I bought 1/2 yard of red and 1/4 yard of white felt and got to work. To make the general shape of the stocking I drew a sock shape on a paper bag that I had split open and laid out. I then cut this out and used it as a template. I first tried using a disappearing fabric pen to trace the shape, but that didn't show up too well on the red felt. A soft graphite 2Bpencil worked much better. I traced and cut out four of these sock bits. Then I repeated the process for the white fluff portion of the stocking, but made eight of these to both hide the seam between the two pieces and give the stockings a more three dimensional top.

I worked mostly with applique and simple embroidery to embellish the stockings. Evan requested Dracula with a Santa hat, which I was able to accomplish thanks to a stencil booklet that I picked up a the fabric store. Not quite the traditional Christmas motif, but it's what he wanted. I modeled my stocking off the one that I have at my mom's house: a snowy scene complete with a snowman. The cupcake, however, is a new addition.

After embroidering our names I sewed together the fluff pieces and then attached them to the stockings. I then paired up the stocking-and-fluff pieces and sewed them together . As a final touch, I used embroidery thread to create a loop from which they could hang. Together they took about two weeks to make, but I think the final product is definitely worth it.