Sewing Project #3: Christmas Stocking

With a cozy pair of pajamas and a fun but not terribly flattering poodle skirt under my belt, Christmas time was fast approaching. I was working on the Colorado Quilt in bits and pieces, but got excited about the idea of making a custom Christmas stocking.  After perusing some options, I decided to go with a big three pattern, McCall's 5549 to be precise.

I used view B for the basic shape, and went about designing my own decorative elements.  Putting my newfound quilting skills to work, I started with piecing together 2" squares for the main portion of the stocking from Christmas-y cotton quilting fabric.  After adding batting and an underlayer of tulle, I quilted the squares "in the ditch" so-to-speak.  I then stay-stitched around the shape of the stocking inside the seam allowance and cut it out.

I then added red corduroy toe and heel covers with Christmas-y white and gold piping at the edges.  The piping I found was really neat, although I unfortunately don't have any photos.  It looked just like cording you would find anywhere, but it was attached to a flat woven edge.  Very easy to insert.  The trickiest part was lining up the toe and heel pieces on the two sides.  The piping made that especially difficult, as it was significantly thicker there than in the other spots, which made it want to shift.

For the lining, I used a poly shimmery gold brocade that was a bit tricky to work with and unraveled everywhere.

With that done, all that was left was to add a cuff.  I ordered some faux polar bear fur from some place online that I don't now recall.  I stitched it to the lining fabric to create a loose cuff that I could add to the stocking top.  I should have done this first, but afterwords, I cut holy leaf shapes from stiff interfacing and steamed some green satin to the shapes.  I then attached the leaves to the cuff with a single stitch down the center to look like the stem of the leaf.  Three red buttons in the center of the leaves made cute holy berries and the cuff was ready to be attached.  I sewed the lining layer to the stocking with right sides together and then hand-stitched the fur layer in place so that the stitches wouldn't get in the way of the fun bounce of the fur.

The green of the satin is a much closer color to the greens of the cotton in person than they turned out looking on the camera.

A view of the top/inside of the completed stocking.

I was incredibly, absurdly, ridiculously happy with how the stocking turned out.  I enjoyed the ability to be original and creative with the elements of the piece, and I also loved working on something that came together so quickly.