Christmas Stockings for people and dogs or whatever!

I wrote a Christmas stocking tutorial 18 years ago, and it holds up today. I share it again as it's the basis for what I'm doing now. I've learned a lot more about strip quilting and trims since then, but it's always good to have an idea of where something came from. Christmas Stocking Tutorial.  I tweak my methods often to adapt for the shape and type of materials. 

It started with a stocking for my daughter's dog, Dolly. You can't tell from this photo, but it's huge! It was the prototype. I drafted a bone pattern and then a second piece that was the bone without the top rounded parts. You can make a pattern, find one online, or purchase a commercial variety. It doesn't really matter except that it's in the shape of a bone. Do a quick Google search and you'll find plenty of patterns. 

After the initial enormous stocking, I got the fever and made three more, one for my son (who has a Beagle)

I use the shorter piece of the pattern (the front) for the strip quilted part. The back pattern piece is cut out of prequilted Christmas fabric. Cut that out and set it aside. Do not sew the two pieces together until you complete your design work on the smaller piece. 

Cut a piece of fabric (lining) and a piece of thin batting using the pattern for the top piece. Set the batting on the fabric with the batting face up.

Begin your strip quilting with 2" strips of fabrics of your choice. See the instructions for how to do that via the link above for the stocking tutorial. I used two dog print fabrics. 

When I had finished the strip quilting, I added the candy cane ribbon between the dog print fabric. 

Hem the top piece and covered the stitching with another piece of ribbon. You can finish this edge however you like. In this case, I used some of the candy cane bias tape to finish the edge. 

Remember the bigger piece of fabric, the whole bone that you cut out? Now you are going to use it. 

With the strip quilted piece face up, place it on what is now the back of your stocking. Pin the top to the back and take a quarter-inch seam to attach them. Trim off bits of ribbon, fabric, thread, etc., and now you have your stocking completed except for the bias binding.

I made my own bias tape. You can make yours using a method you like or purchase some double fold. 

I machine stitched one side of the bias tape, turned it to the back and folded it, then hand stitched the back. 

Lastly, add a hanger of your choice; I used ribbon. 

Dachshund stocking using a couple of Doxie fabric squares I had. The strip quilting in this case is horizontal and only on the bottom part of the bone. 

This one is for my son. I cut the top part of the bone out of Beagle fabric, added Christmas ribbon and rick-rack, added a "cuff" to the front piece (using a remnant of the candy cane ribbon), and bound the whole thing with dog paw bias tape.

What's fun is to do an internet search for the history of Christmas stockings. They have a legend, you know. I like these two the best:

Smithsonian Legend of the Christmas Stocking

and 

Love to Know's history of the stocking

Pet's gotta have a holiday too, right? 

Sewing goodies other than masks again (thought not done with masks!)

I guess it's a good sign that mask sales are down! (Can't wait for the vaccine to be injected into my arm!). I did, however, donate 35 masks to a group of educators yesterday. I've been donating masks all along and this donation made me feel particularly proud. The teachers are still teaching in the classroom, even during the pandemic. We need to be safe and keep others safe. Are you sewing masks? 

Here's what I'm sewing these days:

My daughter has been asking for a stocking for her dog, who will be celebrating her first Christmas together this year. I drafted a pattern and made a prototype for her. It's a large bone shape on the back and 3/4 of a bone shape on the front. I have to revising to do to the pattern, but not bad for a first effort. I had all the fabrics on hand (the paw fabrics are from my mask making stash) and added the pre-quilted back and red/white stripe ribbon to add some Christmas flare. I like it and can't wait to try more.

I've been working on these particular placemats for a long, long time. I began making them some time ago and ran out of the corn fabric used for strips on the front. When I had some breathing room, I started searching for more of it. I finally found it at Colorado Creations Quilting. They were pretty marvelous to work with and are going to show these off in their newsletter. I sew 2" strips of denim end to end and wrap it into a roll, then it gets used in this kind of project. I love the way the denim colors flow together and add some contrast and upcycling at the same time. 

You can make strip quilted placemats with denim, corn fabric, or whatever you want using this tutorial I wrote way back when - PLACEMAT TUTORIAL

My newest thing is another baby quilt. I decided on a Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern because I wanted it to be hand sewn. I always have a hand sewing project going. It's not easy for me to watch TV without one! I found the rainbow color bandanna fabrics, had the center fabric, and the path that will be going around the flowers is a black bandanna fabric. I want the rainbow colors to stand out and I believe they will.

What are you sewing? I'll keep sewing masks until they're no longer needed. I've just about worn out my 8-1/2" ruler and rotary cutter, not to mention the cutting mat. I'll be glad to retire them all. Let's hope the vaccine does its thing. 

Merry Christmas to you all and as always, keep stitching!

Christmas Stockings - You can make them too!

I'm working on a couple of Christmas stockings and remembered I have a tutorial so you can make them too. I've refined my method over the years (the tutorial was written in 2002!), but the concepts and processes are the same. I have names to put on these and then backs, but I do like the clean strip quilting on the fronts. 

If you want to make a Christmas stocking, click here for the directions. They're super easy and a great starter project. There are no rules. Do what you can do and make it your own. 

If you have questions, ask them in the comments section and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. 

Have fun and I'd love to see your own results. 

Coming up

We've been redoing the interior of our house, including my sewing room (our formal dining room). I am currently moving my fabric and notions back into the sewing room. Before I put things back, I'm going through every single item and have purchased two sets of shelves and lots of storage bins (clear), and it'll be as organized as all get out when I'm done. I've ended up with a large amount of fabric I'm giving away, and I feel good about passing it along. Within the week, I want to be done getting set up. And then comes my list of sewing:

• Western baby bibs using bandannas for applique decorations, similar to this one I made years ago. Two things have I have in abundance are denim and bandannas. 

• Baby quilt for my daughter's best friend. This is their first child. Her husband is a train engineer. I have everything but the batting cut out for a cute little log cabin quilt.

• Halloween placemats. I have a lot of ideas. Below is a set from the past. I'm not sure I'll duplicate this pattern, but I do have several Jack-o-Lanterns cut out already. (Here's my tutorial for making placemats of your own!)

• Lastly, I want to make Christmas stockings to give away. I have some Hanukkah fabric as well. Who knows? I may make some of them. I also have some dachshund fabric to make bone shaped dog Christmas stockings. 

I've been working on some hand sewing during the transition, but I'm ready to get my hands on my sewing machines now!

What's on your agenda?

Christmas Projects

I've been a little obsessed with fabric folding lately. I've been here before - Styrofoam, pins, fabric squares, and Elmer's to put on the tip of the pins when I place the fabric on the form. I started with two egg shapes this year. I covered them with two Christmas fabrics, cut off the bottoms so they sit flat, and added cording to the bottom to tie together all the colors. 

 

Then came the wreath. Oh my, the wreath. I had a lot of 1-1/2" strips of Christmas fabric a friend had given me, so I cut them into 1-1/2" squares and decided to do fabric folding on a wreath form. This took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I finished it and it is indeed on my door! (I want to redo the ribbon at a later date, though.) There are approximately 1600 applique pins and 800 squares of fabric, along with the red ribbon and a small wreath that my sister had, which I hung in the center to give the wreath a more completed look. 

I will fold more fabric, I'm sure, but my second obsession has been making ham bag pillows. I've made 6. Now what do I do with them? Here are two:

The second on is actually a vintage sugar bag, but it's the same concept.  

I'm sure there will be more sewing and fabric obsessions in the year ahead. I'll be decking out a new sewing area and that means organizing fabrics again, and again! Which ones will spark my creativity? 

Oh yeah, I did make a pair of slacks in between projects. 

There's always more to sew.

Merry Christmas everyone! Here's hoping Santa brings you lots of fun sewing stuff!

Last year's Christmas pillow made from a Christmas skirt I had made for an ugly sweater party the year before. See what I mean? One thing leads to another! 

Happy New Year my sewing & nonsewing friends

I've been a sewing fool, it seems; so much so, that I haven't taken time to share it with you!

Christmas meant making Christmas stockings, a lot of them, and other stuff. Here's a sampling of what's been whirring in my machine and by hand. So easy, all of it, and fun to look at and give as gifts.

After Christmas, I took the Christmas mug mats/coasters up and the table looked empty. I remembered my stash of yellow and blue fabrics, but them into 1-1/2" strips, and created log cabin mug mats for myself. The binding is some left over blue bias tape and the back is made from a scrap fabric. I still have some leftovers of the blue and yellow fabric. Who knows where it will end up next. These are a little over 4" in circumference. 

Ooops, that's not sewing! A couple of plates of cookies found their way into my camera. How'd that happen? I make a butter cookie with my mother's icing - confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, food coloring, and just enough water to make it spreadable. It hardens, but does not get crunchy like royal icing. They're so good! My kids said this year I used weird colors. They're right! 

I saw a Christmas tree skirt with dachshund silhouettes on it. That sent me on a hunt for a German shepherd dog silhouette. I found a coloring page that was just right. I traced that onto Wonder Under, changing a bit here and there, fused the Wonder Under to Christmas fabric, and cut them out. They, then, were fused to an oval of complementary Christmas fabric, satin stitched, and backed with a fun cheater quilt Christmas fabric. I made the bias binding out of a bit of this and that and voila, placemats. 

Joanna is a friend of my daughter's. She painted an amazing portrait of our last three dogs. It was my present to my husband this year. I figured she deserved a tip, so Christmas stocking it was!

She's an avid archer, so I printed a photo she had posted on Facebook onto fabric. Then I worked around it with some candy cane fabric strips. 

When I think of archery, for some reason, I think of fringe. I had happened to have some red suede fringe, so there you go - the finishing touch. 

Oh yeah, a few potholders too. The Redskins one was a gift. They still don't play so well, but she's a fan.  

As usual, it's backed with denim patchwork. Love my recycled denim! Plus, it does add a layer of protection along with the InsulBrite.

I had some Steelers scraps, so why not? Same thing. Denim backing. There's a fan out there somewhere that wants this.

My daughter asked if I could make a stocking for her boyfriend. She sent me a picture of his dog Photoshopped into a Christmas scene, and as with Joanna's stocking, I printed it on fabric and worked around it with a variety of strips that I've been collecting. The strips were all made of 2" squares and cut down to 1-1/2" wide. It was fun to arrange them. Here is it half done. You can see my blue marks where I was aiming to keep things on point. I don't always use marking, but I recommend it for beginners. I'm an old timer, but still wanted them for precision.

This photo is of the front of it before it was attached to the quilted backing. I'll have a photo of that some day! 

Overall, my year-end sewing has been fun. There's more, but I haven't taken pictures yet. Where I used to be a potholder crazy person, now I'm a Christmas stocking crazy person. So much color, so fun, great to give away or sell, and the make me smile.

My one resolution in regard to sewing is the same as last year - Sew a little bit every day and continue to destash the sewing room.

Happy pins and needles to  you. Sew on!

Recycling an ugly skirt part 1 (is it really this close to Christmas?)

First, let me remind you that there is a strip quilted Christmas stocking tutorial on ScrapStitching. You can find it here: Christmas stocking how-to. I hand drew the pattern, but you can trace the edges of one you already have. The question always comes up about whether it should be hung with the toe to the right or left. I don't know the official answer! If you do, holler.

Last year, I went to an ugly Christmas sweater party. I won! I had a sweater vest that looked like someone had thrown up a bunch of undigested Christmas.

What you can't see are the green tights and red shoes. Hah! I don't mess around. The skirt was made with strips of candy cane fabric, hemmed with snowflakes, and had some green/white/red piping at the bottom edge. (That's Susan sitting behind me; she had an ugly sweater on too.)

I knew I wasn't going to wear the skirt again, so came up with recycling idea number 1. I have part 2 planned, but you can't see that yet.

Fast forward to now. A friend purchased her first house and there's a housewarming on Sunday. I will so be there. I really didn't know what would be a good gift. Should I make something that matches her house? Then I remembered my skirt. How about a Christmas pillow? She wouldn't feel obligated to display it all year long and it would be unexpected and fun. So that's what I went with.

I used the stripes as is for one side:

Believe it or not, I used a hat box as a template for the circle. I like to look around and see what I have when I'm looking for circles, rectangles, and squares.

For the other side, I cut 2" strips of the striped fabric and placed it on a circle of muslin using a log cabin design (you can hardly tell it's a log cabin!):

It came out nice and random looking and that's sort of what I was aiming for.

Next came a trip to my Christmas trims box. I kept the red theme and grabbed some red lacy ruffle and added that to the edge.

I think it's kind of cute! And guess what? I don't have that ugly skirt anymore :)

Gingerbread People Bunting for Christmas

I wanted a bunting (banner) of gingerbread men/women, and so I made one. I have a small alcove where I put up my very small tree and that was the perfect place to hang it. All of the gingerbread people are cut from different browns. The pennant itself is a recycled Christmas gift bag that a friend had made and given to me. The ribbon is left over from a long ago Christmas fabric. The embellishments are all leftovers. I have a small clear container of ribbons and doo-dahs with a Christmas theme.

My gingerbread pattern was found by using Google to search for gingerbread men coloring images. I found the general shape I wanted and tweaked it to the size of the pennant I intended to use. I used pinking shears to cut the pennant pieces and then stitched the gingerbread onto them, just a straight stitch, close to the edge. You could use a Wonder Under application rather than the stitching if you like.

Then I used a satin stitch to do a the final applique stitching around the edge of the gingerbread. I sewed on a few buttons for decoration or eyes, used a snowflake embroidery stitch for some of the eyes, stitched a mouth on a few, used a red piece of ribbon for the mouth on another, and well, here they are a little closer so you can see what I did:

Green ribbon, gold rick rack, and a piece of ruffle on the left.

Buttons, Santa applique, bits of white edge trim, and a piece of leftover red satin for the mouth on the right. (My friend noticed I had sewn the red thread on the white buttons in an X shape and reminded me that this is how you know a cartoon character is dead - the X shaped eyes.)

Flocked red glitter ribbon and machine embroidery on the left.

Red Christmas lace and embroidery on the right. 

Machine embroidery for eyes and mouth, leftover pearls, scrap of Christmas fabric, and green ribbon on the left. 

Buttons for eyes, candy cane button, and some gold rick rack on the right. 

I had fun making these and could have gone on and on, but the bunting got to the length I wanted and that was where I ended it.

I think I'm done decorating for Christmas. I like the way this looks and will use it again next year and then on for as long as it lasts. It makes me smile, and that's a good thing!