Santa Stocking Remix

Hey folks! This is Crystal from Ginger Dimples and I’m super excited to share this tutorial on how to switch up THE stocking by the talented Robin Hill that you are going to make. It’s a free pattern, so I've decided that you are, indeed, going to make one.  Anyway, I was thinking of how to Crystalfy this up when I heard a Christmas song by Ella Fitzgerald.  It’s called “Santa Claus Got Stuck in my Chimney”.  After I filtered the dirty thoughts, craft inspiration hit!

I am JOLLY, just jolly, about sharing this with you.  And I have made TWO versions for you.  WHAT?!?!  Yup!  There’s a nice and mature version for those of you that crave order on your hearth, and there’s the fun and kid-ish version those of you that like a little cookie crumb on your shirt.

2 Santas going down the chimney tonight.  One slid right down, and the other’s stuck real tight!

Here’s how to change it up!

The first thing I did was sponge paint “bricks” onto some burlap. I used a plain old kitchen sponge and rounded the corners with my scissors. My paint was Tulip brand dimensional fabric paint that I picked up from Hancock with a coupon.  I cut my stocking shape out before painting because I wanted the bricks to be placed exactly where I needed them… because I’m crazy.  Make sure to paint your fabric (or burlap if you choose) BEFORE you fuse to your fusible fleece.  And make sure you paint on a surface that you don’t care about.  I painted on a $1 piece of foam core board from Dollar tree.

The next change I made was adding a belt and buckle to the fold over thingy doobob mahicky…I have no idea what that’s called.  I’ll call it a flap. This is done BEFORE you sew your flap pieces together into a loop at the sides.  For the belt, I cut a piece of black fabric 3” x 17.5” and pressed the long ends towards the center.  Then, I just centered it on my MAIN flap piece (NOT the lining) and top stitched it into place. Here’s your picture for that.  It’s VERY high tech:

 For the buckle, I cut a felt square 2”x2” with a 1” square cut out of the middle.  Then I attacked it with glue and glitter.  A thick layer of fabric glue on the felt held the glitter on.  The Elmer’s glue made me hate everything.  Even with the use of fabric glue, the glitter still falls a little and covers everything, but so do all of my other Christmas decorations.  I just accept it and moved on.  Glitter is gonna happen at Christmas time. Hold on to that buckle for now.  We’ll attach it later.

FOR THE NO FEET (or “no fun” version, you Scrooges) :

Assemble the rest of the stocking as directed in the tutorial

For FOOTED version:

I made these little feet by hand drawing them.  I’ve actually made a little template for you.  Merry Christmas; don’t expect another gift. You can download it HERE.

Cut 4 of the whole leg template in your red fabric.  Then trim the pattern at the dotted line and cut 4 out of black fabric.

Then you’re going to fold the top of each black piece under ¼” and press.  Lay it on top of your red piece and top stitch into place.  You can then trim the excess off of the sides.  After that’s done, add some white ric-rac just over the top of the “boots” and stitch it down.  Trim that down too.

 Now place 2 of the legs right sides together and stitch around the sides and bottom leaving the top of the leg open for stuffing.  Repeat for the second leg.  Clip corners, trim seams and turn. Now stuff the crap out of them.  You want to make sure to get enough stuffing in them to stand up straight, but make sure to leave 3/8” at the top for attaching. 

Center your legs on the front of the main flap piece (you will eventually place the buckle centered between them) and stitch them down ¼”.  I didn't get a picture of this, so enjoy this lovely drawing…

Now Assemble the rest of the stocking as directed in the tutorial

BOTH VERSIONS

Once you’re all sewn up, glue your buckle to the center of the belt on your front flap.  You can use whatever glue you love.  I used hot glue because it dries quickly and I have no patience.

Yay all done!  Now go fill it up with goodies…or coal…depending on the year you've had.

Make your own Coloring Book Stockings

It seems like the new Ikea TIDNY fabric, AKA coloring book fabric, is all the rage these days. Sadly, there's no Ikea near me, and there isn't one near our guest blogger from Canada either, but necessity is the mother of invention, so Jeanine came up with an awesome solution! Check out her cute DIY Coloring (or colouring as everyone else in the world spells it!) Book Stockings.

Hello all! My name is Jeanine Thomlinson and today I have a tutorial for you using the Pattern Revolution FREE Stocking Pattern!

I want to show you how you can make your own colouring book fabric! Yes, you read that right - this is a total DIY project! As an added bonus this is also an easy project and none of the materials needed are expensive or fancy! I'll also show you how to make your stocking reversible in this tutorial as well - a little bonus for all you lovely sewists :)

For this project you will need 

• transfer paper  
• twill or light canvas to cut at least one side of your stocking out of (I used twill, but I had to be much more careful with my pen  lingering in one spot than I would have been had I been able to find a light canvas)
• a colouring page printed off the good old internet or from a colouring book
• a regular pencil
• a black fabric marker  

Cut the all the stocking pieces as indicated on the pattern., just make sure that at least one side of the stocking you use twill/canvas. Also note that you might be able to skip the interfacing depending on the weight of your twill/canvas. I skipped the interfacing on my stockings.

Here is a close up of my transfer paper:

Now that you have everything cut out and supplies gathered it is time to get to work!

Lay your stocking down, and put your transfer paper on top of it. Double check to make sure that you have it facing the right way so you don't trace your whole picture only to discover nothing traced - that is a VERY frustrating experience! 

Then put your colouring page picture on top and tape the picture stocking and floor/table together. The tape helps prevent shifting :)

Now you will trace over the image (or parts of) that you would like transferred to the stocking. The harder you press the pencil when you trace the darker the transfer will be. As you can see (poorly) below the transfer can get quite light if you don't keep a good pressure on your pencil.

Now go over your traced lines with your black fabric pen. If you discover there are some things you would like to skip, that is ok, this transfer stuff comes right out !

Now sew the outers and linings together only leaving the hole at the top open for both the outer and "lining".

Once you have them sewn, put your stocking lining and outer together with WRONG SIDES FACING! Sorry to shout at you there, but I really needed that part to stand out. If you want your stocking reversible this is how you go about it!

See, right side up and right side visible on the inside as well. and a piece of vintage trim if you are lazy like me and didn't feel like making a loop to hang the stockings.

Now starting at the heel end center fold both the outer and "lining" in to each other about 1/4 inch or so, as seen below, and pin. I always start at the heel center seam so I remember to add the loop. You just continue to go around the stocking top folding under and pinning.

Once you have it all pinned around you sew along the top, a close to the edge topstitch, making sure that everything stays lined up tidy on the edge and your folds stay in place.

And now you have completely reversible stockings with a fun colouring book side to them!

PS. For the name letter stars I simply traced a cookie cutter, used my fabric marker on a bit of twill tape (or leftover twill/canvas would work better) and sewed the name twill on, then I sewed around the star, wrong sides together, stuffed through a small hole I left open and sewed the hole shut adding in a bit of string in as I sewed it shut.

A bit "rustic" looking, but I love them! Plus now my girls will know which stocking to pull off the wall!

Thanks so much Pattern Revolution for having me here to share this tutorial with your readers! And feel free to pin away! I'd love to see pics of stocking you create, feel free to post them in the Pattern Revolution facebook group!