Little Christmas Stockings Tutorial

Its getting to that time of year again, and so naturally (like I'm sure a lot of you have) I have been getting ready for the festive season a few months in advance.
I have a few ideas this year for cards, wrapping, decorations etc. which I cannot wait to share with you all! However, I thought I would sart this Christmas off by showing you how to create your own personalised Christmas Stockings. Enjoy :)

What you will need:

- Festive Fabric
- Red, Green & White Felt
- Festive Ribbon - Green & Red
- Tartan Ribbon (or any other pattern of your choice)
- Red & Green Buttons
- Cross-Stitching Aida
- Black, Green & Red Embroidery Thread
- Red, Green & White Cotton Thread
- Dressmaker's Chalk
- Stocking Template
- Sewing Machine (if you have one)

Start by taking your template and drawing round it onto both your festive fabric and red and/or green felt with the dressmakers chalk. The festive fabric you choose is for the back of your stocking. The felt is for the front. 

It is important to remember that you will be losing around 1cm during the making of this stocking, so choose a template a little larger than how you want your finished stocking to look. I just chose a simple stocking outline off the internet and printed it off.
I wanted to add a white cuff to the front of the stocking. For this I created my own paper template - effectively just a simple rectangle! 
Then use this to cut out the cuff from your white felt.

To personalise the stockings, I used cross-stitch. Now if you've read any of my previous posts, you will know that I have some knowledge in this area! I love cross-stitch because it looks handmade, it looks personal, and this is the finish I wanted. These stockings were actually Christmas gifts filled with goodies for the girls at work, so each one had their name embroidered onto the front of it. Around this time of year, all craft magazines have festive patterns and ideas in them. I chose a simple holly design from one of them, along with a letter pattern for embroidering the names. 




Once stitched, you need to trim down the aida around your design ready to sew into the front of your stocking.

Before sewing the front of your stocking to the back of it, you need to add all of your decoration to it. On these particular ones I added a white felt cuff with tartan ribbon trim, the personalised cross-stitched square, and red & green buttons.
To do this, take your tartan ribbon, and cut it to size. Lay it across your stocking somewhere towards the top, but far enough down so that when your white cuff is put on over the top, you can still see some of the ribbon - giving you your trim. Sew this ribbon into place and then do the same with the white felt cuff.

You then need to prep your stocking for the cross-stitched design. Cut a square into the centre of the stocking that is smaller than the square of aida. Then turn the front of your stocking over, place your cross-stitched design face-down over this square and secure into place with a blanket or applique stitch. This can be done by hand or machine.

Once you have finished embellishing the front, it is time to sew it to the back. Make sure you sew it so that the 'right' side of the festive fabric and the embellished side of your stocking front are on the inside.

Once all in place, sew the front and back together. Although its quicker (and sometimes neater) to use a sewing machine, hand stitching these little cuties will also work fine!

After it has been all sewn up, turn the stocking outside-in and have a look at what you have created. I finished mine off by hand-stitching a loop of ribbon into the top corner for hanging. After all, a stocking isn't worth having at Christmas if you can't hang it by the fire!

Voila!

So have a go at making your own Christmas Stockings. They don't take long and you can experiment with a world of different fabrics, patterns and embellishments to make yours unique. They also make a lovely, personal gift!

Shopping List

White, red & green felt - www.amazon.co.uk

Festive fabric - www.myfabrichouse.co.uk

Festive ribbon - www.amazon.co.uk

Buttons (1 mixed pack) - www.amazon.co.uk

Tartan ribbon - ASDA Supermarket

Aida & embroidery thread - Hobbycraft

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and that I have inspired you to have a go. Get a wriggle on though, it'll be here before you know it!

Stay Merry and Bright!
Zo..x

Weekend Project

Hello everybody and Happy Sunday! We all live for the weekend, and when it arrives (finally) we each like to relax(ish) in our own little ways. I myself like working on little projects. This particular one was inspired by the creations in Kirsty Neale's book 'Hoop-la! - 100 Things To Do With Embroidery Hoops'. I purchased this little gem a few weeks ago and adore the creative ideas inside it. She really has thought outside the box - or hoop in this case! I thought I would share with you what I designed and made.

So after flicking through quite literally 100 things to do with embroidery hoops, I wanted to have a go at making my own. Knowing I had a spare hoop in my sewing box, I had a look through to see what else I had hiding in there. Deciding that I wanted to make it up as I went along, I just pulled out the key items I knew I wanted to use:

- Spare fat quarter of retro style fabric from 'Haberdasher's Hub' for the background

- Bright purple embroidery thread for covering the hoop

One thing that is explained in the book is different ways to cover your outer hoop to make the overall look tie in and more interesting. I loved this! 

I covered mine by wrapping embroidery thread around it, secured with double sided tape lining the inside of the hoop (as advised by Kirsty Neale). Although this was a little time consuming, the end result is so rewarding. I can't deny that it was also quite therapeutic.

Once this was finished, I picked out my favourite part of the fabric to display inside the hoop. In case you are not familiar, embroidery hoops are made up of an inner and outer hoop. To display fabric, you take your inner hoop, place it underneath the part of fabric you want to display, and then place your outer hoop over the top of the fabric. You then use a screw-driver to tighten the screw at the top of the outer hoop, which then pulls the outer hoop in and traps the fabric between the two. You then trim the excess fabric.

As you may have seen from previous posts, I love cross-stitching and so I wanted to incorporate a little embroidery into my design. I picked out certain parts of the pattern and followed them in corresponding threads using either back-stitch or satin-stitch. The photo above shows satin-stitch being started on the center of one of the flowers.

I then wanted to add a pop of colour and came across some fluorescent pink felt in my sewing box. Seeing as this was just a fun little decoration, I thought I would add my initial. I drew up a 'Z' template and then used it to cut out a pink felt 'Z' shape. I really feel that the pink works so well against the dark retro colours of the fabric. What do you think?

I could have removed the fabric from the hoop and machine sewn the 'Z' onto it. However, I was having fun just hand stitching and thought I would keep this consistent. So I back-stitched it on by hand instead. I really like the texture and detail the finishing touches add to the fabric and am so pleased with how its turned out. 
To finish off, I lined the inner hoop with some more double sided tape (to the back of the decoration) and stuck down the excess fabric to keep it looking neat.
The best thing is, this is something you can knock up in a weekend and is so fun to do. The design possibilities are endless too. I would love to see some of your versions!

Ta Dah!

Thank you Kirsty Neale for your wonderful inspirations! I cannot wait to get crafting me some more of these.

Next time you all have a free weekend, give this a go. It would be great for the kids as well I suspect. 

I usually find that some of my favourite items are those that I've made up as I've gone along - happy accidents if you will. This way of working is so much fun. Do you have any Happy Accidents you would like to share? Tweet them to me @ZibZobHandmade. I would love to see them!

I hope you enjoyed the read and that I've inspired you to do some crafting next Saturday.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend... Keep watching this space!

Zo..x