I love the look of the vintage quilted stockings, the culprits of my obsession are exhibit A and B from pinterest. Just look at them in all there Christmas Carol feel glory. How can you not want some in your home. They look so cozy in the soft glow of the christmas tree, fireplace or even the continuous video of the yule log playing on the t.v. While I love the quilted style of those antique christmas treasures, the colors and fabrics are lacking. At least I really wanted an easy way to get the simple christmas-y style, of days long since past, but with fabrics I loved. This is where the FREE Ellie and Mac Stocking pattern comes into to play. I took this super simple pattern to make a set of personalized christmas stockings for my geek family. Bonus points for the fact that these are a quick easy sew and make absolutely perfect last mintue gifts…(especially since they fit a bottle of wine perfectly for the wine lovers in your life ;) )
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Here is the secret to get that quilted look without a ton of effort, FLEECE. Yup, I said fleece. I simply pin my stocking front onto a piece of leftover fleece that is just slightly bigger than my stocking. Obviously repeat for the back side if you want the front and back to both be “quilted”. After that I sew parallel lines that are half an inch apart(semi- #lifehack: most all purpose sewing machine feet make 1/4 inch in width when if you line the previously line up with the opposite edge of your machine foot and set you needle position to the far right( or left)...BAM equally spaced stitch lines) *que audible gasps* I start at the top of the stocking and continue with these lines all the way down to the end of my stocking. Just this super simple hack turns a normal stocking into a potential family heirloom.
The first complete stocking
Now when I made my set I did not have much fabric to work with and funds were going towards other christmas expenses, so I decided to use this as the perfect opportunity to bust some scraps. And if we are honest all have hoards of scraps, especially those expensive custom scraps we can't bare to part with because you have to get your money's worth. #guiltyofscraphoarding You can do this by making a cool color block design, that is well thought out and cleverly uses everything. Or you can do what I did and I took strips of fabric from my scrap box, ripped them to mostly equal sized widths, and sewed them all together length side to length side, until I ended up with a piece big enough to get my stocking out of. I then proceeded as you would for a solid “quilted” piece. With both versions you can get fancy and use the decorative top stitches some machine come with instead of plain straight lines. Aside from the added layer of fleece and extra top stitching to get the “quilt” effect, the steps are the same.
One last change I did to my set was binding a ruffled strip of my pieced together scraps along the top edge because I did not have any wide enough pieces for the cuff. I know so embarrassing, when you get to a project and find you are just short of something and go ahead and wing-it. I find sometimes that gives me the best items, as they tend to take a bit more thought to figure out a fix. Instead of clipping or pinning the cuff and liner and then flipping it, to get the ruffle you completely sew the 2 liners together and flip right side out before slipping it into the outer piece. From here bast on the ruffle and then bind the edge to give it a clean finished look.
My Completed set
Look how cozy the set looks by the yule log burning.
Isn't it amazing all you can do with this FREE pattern. So go grab it for yourself and have fun making it all your own.
Pattern: the Merry and Bright Stocking
