Non Fragile Stockings

Last weekend I was reading my blog list and sighing over the cute stockings everyone has hanging on their christmas-fied mantles. But here in podunk Kentucky all the stockings I can easily shop for are ugly, cheap, and/or flannel. So, we decided to make our own. Like, hand sew those bad boys.

Badass.

Honestly Rob is the one who persuaded me to hand sew. We each sewed our own stockings, and it really only took about an hour or two for each. I was expecting days of sewing! Plus, they turned out much better than we were expecting-- they're BIG too! 

We used a paper pattern we got from Walmart that cost $2.50, it is similar to this one:

Then we opened up the pattern packet in Walmart to see what measurements and supplies we needed. They're fairly simple to make, we skipped a lot of steps that the pattern wanted us to do since we bought such a thick fabric for the liner, so I'll do a quick tutorial if you're interested! 

According to our pattern, we each got 5/8 of a yard of red broadcloth for the outer, and 5/8 yard of white quilted cotton for the inside liner and cuff. 5/8 of a yard was generous too, we had plenty of leftover fabric so if we had messed up we probably could have pieced together another stocking from the scraps. If you get quilted fabric like we did then you don't have to line the inside of the stocking because the quilted fabric is so thick anyways. We just had the thin red broadcloth as the outside layer and then the white quilted fabric as the inner. 

So you cut out both your inner fabric and your outer fabric. Cut out two of each so that you have four pieces total.

Then you place the two outside fabrics face to face (the red broadcloth), and place the two inside fabrics on the outside, faces out (the white quilted cotton). Like you sandwich the red with the white fabric. You are sewing it inside out, then you'll flip it rightways out when you're done. The pattern has good instructions for this part with handy drawings to help.

Stitch along the outside edge (about 1/4 in. from the edge) using a straight stitch. We doubled up our thread too for maximum present supporting in the future. 

Leave extra room around the corners because you'll need to snip triangles out of the fabric to ensure that it lays nicely when you fold it right side out. I didn't take a picture of that step though because I was too excited. Here is someone elses picture:

 And when you fold it right side out, you'll have the beginnings of a stocking!

Next you cut the fabric out for the cuff. You only need two pieces of the quilted fabric for this bit, no red! Again, use the paper pattern given to you. The pattern explains how to sew the two cuff pieces together and fold it. You tuck the stocking strap in between the cuff and the stocking. This part was so confusing to me that we had to go visit my Nana and have her explain it to us so I don't have pictures of any of this. There's also multiple ways to do this and you can't really mess up since the cuff hides all the sins of your sewing.

But, when the cuff is sewed, you use a blanket stitch to secure it to your stocking you already sewed. 

The cuff hides the stitching, and the inside of the stocking looks fairly seamless. 

 Sorry, I know this is a bit confusing. I am not so savvy with sewing terminology! But in the end you have a finished stocking. We then added some ruffles and buttons to ours to make them different from each other.

But we didn't want to mess up the stockings we'd worked so hard on!

So I hot glued the buttons to Rob's...

 And pinned the ruffles to mine. Now we can change our minds in the future/yearly! :)

We don't have a very ideal place to put them so for now they're hanging in the stairway. I wanted to put some garland on the railing but there is no use putting makeup on a pig! That stairwell is just awful. 

I had a lot of fun picking out the fabric for these, you could definitely copy Pottery Barn velvet ones or some such. Ours only cost us $2.50 for the pattern, ~$3 for the broadcloth, and ~$6 for the quilted cotton. $12 isn't bad for 2 stockings! And I'm hoping these will last us many years to come!