Make Your Own Christmas Stockings (nat)

I did these stockings last year and I think it's probably one of my very favorite sewing projects so far. It was a lot of fun and I learned so much by doing it. I love that I know I'll use them every year for many years to come! I'll try my best to add a tutorial, ask as many questions as you need if you want to try yourself and the instructions aren't clear. It probably sounds really complicated but it's really not, I just gave all the details.

** Linking up to the Holiday party at The inspired room

CHRISTMAS STOCKING TUTORIAL

1. This is the stocking pattern that I used (thanks josey!). I didn't really follow all those directions, I just used the shape of the full stocking that's on page 3, but make sure you enlarge it 200%

2. I looked online at Coloring Book Pages to find the images that I wanted to put on the stockings first. There are a ton out there that are free to print. I thought this site had really cute one's though so that's what I used
http://freechristmascoloring.com/Christmascoloringpages.html

3. Once I found the images I printed them the size I wanted and then traced them on to graph paper. I labeled each part the color I wanted it to be.

4. Next I headed to the fabric store. The stocking fabrics I just used whatever material looked cute. Cotton, home decor fabrics, whatever you want. Mine are all different. And I tried to make them coordinate. Then for all the pieces for the images I bought Wool Felt. It is pretty pricey but you only need the smallest amount they will sell to you b/c it doesn't take much. You can use regular felt, it just doesn't look as nice or hold up as well. I used wool felt for the top of the stockings with the names too. I also bought embroidery floss for all the embroidering (it was like 3 bucks for a pack of 20 colors) and i got any little embellishments like a pom pom for the santa hat and wood stars etc. I also got interfacing. I used interfacing on the actual stocking to make it thicker but i also got iron on interfacing for the images that go on. You don't need much and its cheap.

5. Cut out the stocking fabric for the front side.

6. Then cut out the shapes for the image from your graph paper and cut out the wool felt accordingly.

7. The part that took the longest was adhering all the tiny image pieces to the stocking and then embroidering. It's not hard at all, just tedious.

8.You don't have to fuse all the image pieces on with interfacing, I just found it to feel much more durable that way and the lady at the fabric store recommended it. Then with embroidering the pieces on. I mostly just used a really basic stitch. Start from the bottom, go up, come back down. Over and Over. I did look on You Tube to see how to do a French Knot to do things like the snowman's mouth and the dots on the ends of each letter in the names at the top. For the names I used a backstitch which I guess is best for fine details.

9. Oh and for the names, I just found a font I liked on my computer, printed out the names and then traced them on before embroidering.

**Ok I think that's about it. A lot of info I know, and I won't be offended in the least bit if you don't use any of it. I just had several people that asked a ton of questions to so I thought I would share the wealth!