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

A Warm Welcome - Hallway Design

As many of my friends know, alongside crafts and textiles, I am also very passionate about interior design and furniture. After studying it for nearly 5 years, not only do I enjoy the design element of it, but I have also become extremely fond of the 3D Visualisation side. My mum and dad are currently in the process of re-modelling the hallway and it was up to me to choose how it was to look once decorated. So, today's post is all about my design concept and the 3D visuals I created to explain it.

Okay, so this is what the hallway currently looks like - a mess right! But actually, I'll have you know that a whole lot of work has already been done on it. The doorways you can see in the above image were either never there or completely different, the lighting is in a new location, there has been a new ceiling put in, and all of the walls have been stripped of wallpaper, re-plastered and painted.

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Even though I am re-designing for my own parents, it was never to be an easy project. The budget is very limited and the client (my lovely mother) can be quite picky - which there is nothing wrong with by the way! She needed it to be simple, give a good first impression, and appeal to most tastes (to make it saleable).

I started by surveying (measuring) the entire hallway, stairs and landing so that I could draw up an accurate plan. In my opinion, this is the worst part - but it is also one of the most important parts, which is annoying! Once I had drawn up the plan, I imported it into my model space so that I could start creating the model of what it would look like. It is this part of the process that I thoroughly enjoy, as I love watching the space progress and seeing what it should look like once finished. It was also important to my parents that I created visuals because, as with a lot of people, they find it hard to visualise the finished area when it is still such an empty shell.

I have recreated the photograph above with a visual of what the hallway will/should look like when finished. The house has fairly high ceilings and I wanted to include more than one texture and pattern on the walls so that they wouldn't feel so vast. I did this by choosing two wallpaper deigns and separating them with a dado rail. I went for green purely because it is a favourite and looks lovely and fresh.


Before I reached this decision, I actually started to design the hallway how I would have liked it myself - just to see what it would look like (not quite my mother's taste)! It included a lot of warm grey tones and pops of daffodil yellow. I adore these colours together. I also left the stairs bare, had the handrail and treads painted black and left the balustrades, newel posts, stringers and risers painted white. I think staircases can actually be an interesting way of showcasing your taste and personality. This is useful as the staircase is usually the first thing guests see when entering your home. I have seen a lot of really cool photos including:

Rainbow Steps - the overall design creating a fun 'play area' feel

Contemporary Balustrades - sophisticated and enjoyable

Reclaimed Materials - creating an edgy and rustic look

To list just a few.

Even though I had to 'play it safe' to a certain extent, I still didn't want to make the design too expected, beige and samey. I knew my mum definitely wanted wallpaper and texture - so I gave her both, in feel and design. I opted for a textured, plain wallpaper for above the dado rail and a smooth, geometric print wallpaper for below. The reason for the geometric print is, I wanted to add pattern to the space that was different to large floral prints that tend to be everywhere within households now (including my own bedroom!). I added further interest by choosing a striped carpet for the stairs in earthy tones to ground the green on the walls. I felt the stripes would have been a bit too much for the entire hallway floor, and so decided on wood (Oak) for this.

I wanted to keep hold of the high skirting board that the hallway had before as it is in-keeping with the features around the rest of the home. I think that the dado rail decision fits in with this plan quite nicely as well. When re-designing a room in your house, I feel it is really important to think about the style of the skirting, cornices, architraves and any other molding for that matter. When they compliment each other and the style of the house, it really brings harmony to the overall design.

I still managed to keep hold of my beloved grey and yellow palette within this design. As seen in the images above, I plan to have the curtains, accessories and lighting fixtures in the two colours. Although I have chosen a fairly mixed colour palette and selection of patterns, I feel they all compliment each other to form a fresh, contemporary and welcoming hallway.

When it is time for a change in your home and you are reaching for the paint charts and fabric swatches, it is important to remember that even though the colours and textures play a large role in the design, you also need to take into consideration how the space is used. 

After living in this house for around 17 years, I know the hallway pretty well. It is quite a peculiar shape which is why the furniture had to be thought through properly. In the end I opted for a small stool for guests to quickly perch on when removing their shoes, and a slim console table for displaying various items. Knowing the house (and the people who live in it) well, I know that the console table will need drawers for post, papers and other small items that can be a messy eyesore. The table will also be a good place for guests to put their shoes under out of the way. For this particular home, this is all the furniture the hallway required.

After receiving samples through the post, both myself and my parents fell in love with the wallpaper choices. 

To the left of the image: Beka in pale green. To the right of the image: Ling by Steve Leung in green. Both from Graham & Brown.

It may sound like common sense, but when wallpapering a high-traffic area, always make sure it can be easily cleaned/wiped or it is labelled as 'washable'.

I was determined to find a lovely striped carpet for the stairs and adored Chiswick Stripe in Stone from Carpetright.

Again, make sure the flooring is up to withstanding high volumes of traffic if it to be used in such an area - particularly on the stairs.

What do you think of my choices? What would you have chosen or done differently?

I know it has been a little more long-winded and bit different to my other posts, but I do hope you have enjoyed the read (and the visuals). I would love to know your thoughts and please share any recent projects you have worked on around the home - hallway or not!

Once it is all done I will be posting 'before' and 'after' photographs, and I really can't wait to see how they compare to the visuals.

Keep watching this space!

Zo..x