Christmas Stockings Tutorial

December 5, 2011

Two years ago I knew I wanted to make our family Christmas stockings. My Mom and I were out shopping at fabric stores and I fell in love with this fabric, but it wasn’t until last year that I finally got them made. I went ahead and made 5 stockings even though we didn’t have a third baby yet (I guess my subconscious knew she’d be coming soon!).

A friend of mine loved them and asked me to make a set for her kids. We’ve been planning them since March, I swear, and I was finally able to get them done last week. I really love how they came out and I’m seriously considering making more for us!

I appliqued each child’s initial to the cuff of the stocking with plain black fabric.

They just make everything more festive!

(I’m also making a tree skirt, so stay tuned for that!)

And because of the way they’re designed, when they’re stuffed for Christmas morning, you can stand the cuff up to make them a little taller to accommodate all the stocking goodies!

It doesn’t take much to make your own set of personalized stockings! They’re also fast to whip up, I think this tutorial took me longer to write than it took to make all 5!

The finished size is 17.5″ long from top of folded cuff to toe, 21.5″ unfolded, and 6.5″ wide.

For each stocking you’ll need:
2 outside pieces
2 lining pieces
2 cuff pieces
1 6″ piece of ribbon
applique (optional)

This is actually a great project for fat quarters! The stockings I made for us came entirely from fat quarters and 4 out of the 5 of these did as well. To make your stockings fairly cheaply, and to have them coordinate instead of match exactly, search for a fat quarter bundle on etsy. It takes 1 FQ for each stocking, and 1 produces 2 cuffs.

First, iron the cuff pieces in half.

Then iron on your applique. For these, I used Pharmacy font and traced it from MS Word at size 550. Put the fold on the bottom and the raw edges on the top before ironing the applique. I know this seems backwards, but trust me, it needs to go on the top half. To center mine when the cuff is down, I placed the letters 3/8″ above the fold.

Then applique around the letter. If you need more help on this, see my applique tutorial and the tutorial on appliqueing curves.

Now decide which way your stockings will hang and with right sides together, sew the cuff piece with the applique to the front stocking piece. When you do this, make sure the applique is facing the foot of the stocking.

Then sew the same lining piece to the other side of the cuff with right sides together.

You’ll have something that looks like this:

Press your seams to the middle.

Repeat with the back pieces.

Lay the front and back together with right sides facing each other, lining up your cuff pieces.

Take the 6″ of ribbon and make it into a loop.

Place it between your lining layers on the BACK side (heel side) of the stocking with the loop on the inside. Line it up right where the lining meets the cuff. Pin in place.

Pin the stocking pieces together. I usually don’t pin things, but I wanted to make sure I kept this looking nice.

To sew them together, I started in the “sole” of the lining. I sew the lining together at 3/8″ seam allowance and when I get to the cuff, I gradually move it over to 1/4″ seam allowance. I do this to make sure the lining fits perfectly inside the stocking when put together and it doesn’t lump or bulge.

Leave a hole a few inches wide along the bottom of the lining to turn the stocking through.

To make sure your curves lay flat, you need to clip them. I cheat and use pinking shears.

Turn the stocking through your hole and iron everything flat.

Sew the hole in the lining closed, stuff the lining into the outer pieces, and you’re done!!

If you’re making more than one, I recommend doing them assembly-line style. It goes faster!

The Hubs and I had great fun creating words out of these! No words can be made from our initials, so we got a good chuckle before I mailed them.

Download the pattern here:

christmas stocking pattern

Posted in Tutorials