making a Christmas stocking

Hanging on Euan’s dooor handle on Christmas Eve will be my first home-made Christmas stocking, pieced together using bits and bobs from my long neglected sewing box.  I pulled everything out a few weeks ago and spent some time drawing, cutting and pinning while Euan explored all my buttons and beads and made little presents of them wrapped in paper scraps.  How relaxing it was especially as only the night before I’d given up on the idea of having time to make a Christmas stocking for him.  While Euan rooted through my stash of felt pieces I made a template by drawing round a cereal bowl for the heel and fashioning a toe and leg from there!  I opted for an A4ish size Christmas stocking as that was the size of the felt pieces I had but also because I’d read a gentle reminder about keeping presents light on budget and waste and high in intrigue and excitement.

I blinged up Euan’s Christmas stocking with a little beady sparkle and we’re both really pleased with the results.

I thought I’d share the templates for my Christmas stocking (see links below), partly for my own sake if I ever make any more but so you can make one too if feeling short of time or inspiration. All you need is 3 pieces of felt for the stocking, 1 piece for the trim and 1 piece for the name and stars. The total cost if you’re starting from scratch sourcing all materials is about £6 for felt, beads and thread (much less if you opt to save yourself some star sewing and go for felt with glitter stars printed on it, have buddies you can beg some beads from and fabric scraps for the trim and decorations).

As for filling E’s stocking, who knows what Santa will bring {wink}.   There are some great hand-made stocking stuffer ideas on Pinterest if the elves are looking for ideas.

In preparation for the big day E’s been reading Santa is Coming to Gloucester and asking how Father Christmas will get into our house with no open chimney to climb down.  A magic key is the answer and this one will be put out on the doorstep along with the carrots and mince pie (which Father Christmas is expecting having responded to the letter E left for him on the wishing tree at Gloucester Folk Museum).


Footnote: total time to make approx 7 hours (or 3 episodes of Casualty/Holby and one watch of Cars with E!).

(This post was first published 18 December 2014)