Christmas Stockings

Look, look! Pretty Christmas stockings! 

I love how these turned out. I think they're pretty, traditional, but also modern in their simplicity. Plus, I already had the fabric! So, buy the trimmings and I'm all set! 

You could really use any fabric at all for these. I had some indoor red canvas type fabric hanging around from an old sewing project. I also had some white cotton fabric from a set of old sheets that I used for lining. My mother-in-law gave me a bunch of them to make pillow cases. Well, I've made quiet a few pillow cases (they're so fast on a serger - have I sung the praises of my serger yet?) and had plenty left over. 

So, first I ironed that fabric. Of course, it was already pre-washed and dried. 

I made myself a template for the stocking. I just taped together three pieces of paper and drew it out free hand. I love having the ability to choose my own shape.

Now, I'm super lazy, so I don't usually use pins for placement when sewing. In fact, I didn't use any pins at all for this project. I have no patience. I just laid out the template and traced around it with a pen. In my opinion, all of this hullabaloo about erasable/vanishing ink is nonsense for this kind of thing. None of those lines will ever show. Ever. So use whatever you have. Not a big deal here.

Of course, I tried to place the template in such a way that I would conserve the most fabric possible. Then, I cut out my shapes. Don't forget that you'll need two for each stocking! Ha. Do the same for the lining.

Once you're finished cutting them out, you'll need to stitch each one together. Since they're Christmas stockings and don't have to fit any bodies, you can choose whatever seam width you're comfortable with on the machine. Just make sure to use the same one consistently so things are uniform.

Then, clip your curves. It makes turning your stockings so much easier! Of course, you won't be turning the linings. They're going to be plopped right down inside your turned red ones. So, I guess it's up to you whether you want to clip them. I didn't think it mattered. I didn't clip them. My hands said no. I'm sure my grandma would slap me.

 Okay, so we know the linings fit inside. But before sewing them in place, we get to do the fun part. Trimmings! Lace and ribbon and bows and other pretty things! I gathered all the ribbon I would need and measured it to fit around the stocking. Of course, trimmings could have been done before the stockings were sewn together, but this way made it so much easier for me to see exactly where things were going in order to line them up. So, that's what I did.

 I found these great snowflake buttons at Joann and the initial charms at Walmart. The awesome thing is that the charms actually fit through the button shank! They dangle and sparkle and please me very much.

I kind of laid out the way that I wanted the ribbon to look on the stocking. Though the thin silver ribbon can be seen in the plans, it didn't make the cut. Just couldn't cut it. Didn't look right. That is all.

Here are all of the trimmings laid out. The top shorter ribbons will be looped (as seen on the far right) in order to hang the stockings. I also ironed flat the ribbon at the bottom. That stuff had a crazy attitude after being wound so tightly for so long. So, I hit it with heat. And it worked. Also, because I wanted to add some more interest and texture to the white ribbon, I sewed thin colored ribbon on top of the white (silver and red), so it was all attached and ready before I began stitching it to the stocking. You could, of course, use whatever decorations you want!

I measured with a ruler where I wanted the lowest ribbon to be sewn. I liked the placement at three inches.

I went ahead and marked around each stocking at three inches down. Then, I sewed around my ribbons, simply folding the ends as I finished and securing them with a back stitch.

When I was finished with the lower ribbons, it was time to stuff the lining. Put your fingers down in the toes and make sure that your curves are all matching up. Since I used a template, they all fit really nicely. I decided to use the top ribbon as a binding. This way, I didn't have to finish and hem the top. So much easier. So much lazier. So me. I did iron the ribbons for this binding in half, long ways. This made them so much easier to handle and was really necessary. Lastly, I folded the short ribbon into a loop and sewed it on to the side where I wanted the stocking to hang. I sewed a nice, strong rectangle to secure that guy in place. Why? To hold lots of nice, heavy stocking stuffers. For me, of course. Wouldn't want someone to have to consider weight when picking me a gift....

Finally, I sewed on those beautiful buttons with the initial charms. And hung them up to snap loads of pictures.

 Seriously, what's better than a stack of pretty Christmas stockings? Not much.

Christmas Trees

I love Christmas decorations! The couple of months leading up to Christmas always find me creating something. Usually, my glue gun is nearby and my husband's voice is background noise, asking where we're going to store the finished product and why it's needed. :)

These Christmas trees are definitely needed.

To make them, I simply coiled up some cardboard into a cone shape (you could use cereal boxes, old packing materials, etc.), secured the closure with duct tape, and leveled off the bottom with scissors so that they'd stand straight. The cone shapes can be cut to any height or size you want, depending on where you want to place them in your home.

After creating the cone shape, I wrapped decorative ribbon and trimmings (even sequins trimming!) around the trees, securing it with dabs of glue from my glue gun as I went around.

For the other tree, I folded lengths of ribbon into loops and then, beginning at the base of the tree, layered those loops to build up a textured look.

I love my trees. They were so easy and inexpensive. And they're so pretty.

Make a bunch and put them wherever you'd like!

Christmas Tree Skirt

This Christmas tree skirt was a labor of love. Seriously. It took a long time. However, it is done. And, I'm actually really proud of it. It's pretty and unique and festive. Just what I wanted it to be.

So, here's how I did it. 

The base for the tree skirt was sewn last year. I simply re-purposed an old table cloth, kind of like this. My table cloth was rectangular to begin with, but still worked beautifully. I decided to line the fabric with vinyl for durability (these things spend all their time on the floor, getting bunched up, sat on, dripped on, etc.) so I bought another similar table cloth and made another skirt the same size. However, since vinyl doesn't need hemming, it needed even less work (hey, super) and was really easy to attach to the already finished and hemmed red skirt. Of course, I only attached the vinyl once the snowflakes were sewn on. That way, all my ugly stitches are hidden. Clever, right?

With the red skirt hemmed up, I began to make snowflakes. I found a lot of free crochet snowflake patterns online, including these and also these and also this one. Pinterest is a super great forum for finding a lot of free patterns. Also, remember that your browser will probably translate any pages that happen to be in foreign languages. And, if you can read a diagrammed pattern, you're in even better shape.

So, I made a lot of these. I used something like this, a fine cotton crochet thread. And, of course, when you first make them they will be very soft. Picots and other details might not show well since the snowflake isn't yet blocked or starched. You'll need to do that next. I stretched out cellophane on my rug with straight pins at each corner and along each side, just enough to keep the plastic in place. Afterward, I pinned down my snowflakes and used a thin mod podge (I thinned it out with water, using about a one:one ratio) to coat them all using a foam craft brush. I flipped them when they felt tacky and slathered the other side. Then, I waited for them to dry completely. You might notice that the ones below have some glitter on them - these were actually used for a different project (why, yes, of course I will post it when it's finished) but the stiffening technique was the same.

You can see that afterward, they are quite stiff and durable.

Then, I worked to lay them all out on the skirt, trying to find a pattern that I liked.

Once I was happy with their placement, I sewed each of them on by hand. I could have used the machine, but worried about the dried glue gumming up the works. Whatever. As you can see, I wasn't very meticulous about it. Hey, they're on. And they'll stay. What more do you want? I did put down a drop of fabric glue at the point of the knot when I was finished, just to make sure.

 I also crocheted an edging which I sewed around the circumference of the skirt. I didn't stiffen it as I did the snowflakes. I don't have a pattern for it drawn up, since I sort of made it up as I went along. But there are a lot of great edging tutorials online. Here's a pretty one.

I may have screwed it up a couple of times as I sewed. Aligning that sucker while keeping the vinyl from slipping was, at times, a pain in the ass. We don't need to talk about it. We just need to be grateful for the ripper. The almighty ripper.

And, there you have it. All done and ready for the tree.