Today I am going to continue with my Christmas decor DIY! I have been wanting to make Christmas stockings for 2-3 years now and never got around to it, I even had the thought to make them this year but reminded myself I never had time in the past. However, my son saw me looking at Christmas craft ideas and on the website was a stocking tutorial. He said, “Oh could you make that?!?” So I told him we would. Then when the twins and I were at Joann’s looking for beads we walked by their remnants of fabric and found some very cute Christmas fabric. Even better…the remnants were an additional 75% off! We could not pass up such a good deal.
In today’s post I’ll be sharing a tutorial on how to sew your own Christmas stockings!
Materials You’ll Need:
- 1/2 fabric (quilting cotton or flannel are great options)
- 1/4 yard minky or soft fabric for the top of your stocking
- 8” ribbon, twill, or corresponding fabric for hanging your stocking
- Thread
- Sewing machine
- Scissors
- Measuring tape
- If making your own pattern you will also need an old stocking, paper and a pencil
Step 1: take your old stocking and place it on a large piece of paper then trace around the old Christmas stocking. You’ll want to trace about a half inch away from the stocking to create your seam allowance. Then cut out your pattern
Step 2: Place pattern on your stocking fabric and pay attention to the direction of the print. I would also recommend cutting your pieces either with your fabric folded right sides of the fabric together. Or you could cut one piece with the foot facing to the right and the second piece with the foot facing the left. You want the right sides of your fabric together when you put your Christmas stocking together to sew.
Step 3: Place your Christmas stocking right sides together and sew a straight stitch around the sides and bottom, do not sew along the top seam.
Step 4: Take your fabric scissors and cut little snips in your seam around the curves, make sure you do not cut your stitch, the snip should stop right before your stitch.
Step 5: Cut out a piece of your soft minky that is 9”tall and 16” wide. Then fold it over width wise and sew along the seam with a straight stitch.
Step 6: You then want to fold that minky rectangle in half going length ways and now you have about a 4” piece of minky with raw edges on one side and the fold on top. This is going to become the top of your Christmas stocking
Step 7: With your stocking still inside out you want to tuck your folded minky inside the stocking with the fold going in first. This will give you all of the raw edges meeting up, the two folds of the minky and inside the stocking. Once it fits just right you want to pin all three layers of fabric together and line your seams up, I put the seam from the minky in place with the middle seam of my stocking. If the minky seems to big then you may need to take it out and sew another seam further in, it really is worth doing so because it will make sewing your stitch here much easier.
Step 8: Sew a straight edge around the stocking. Make sure you are not sewing the front and back together, you are sewing the three pieces of fabric and will end up going all the way around the stocking. You may need to go slow or pause and adjust your fabric along the way.
Step 9: pull your Christmas stocking right side out and admire your work! Now we all know that most stockings are hung so the last step is to take your ribbon or twill and fold it over, right at that outside seam place the ends of this loop inside about an 1.5” in the stocking, then sew a small straight stitch attaching the twill to the stocking.
Step 10: Repeat until everyone has a new stocking and hang them up!
If you can believe it I made all 5 stockings for under $7. Part of that is because I already had the twill and have tons of scrap minky scraps. However, even if you are purchasing all of the materials at your local fabric shop, it is still a very affordable project!
Blessings,
Ellen
