Holiday Stockings!!!

I am REALLY excited about this one! After the wedding buzz started to wear off I realized that the holidays were right around the bend. In an effort to really make our house "home," I decided it was time to start collecting our own holiday decorations. We are not religious and tend to have pretty modern, funky style so the idea of DIY holiday decor seemed appropriate, if not necessary. We are now slowly beginning to accumulate ornaments and I think we're going to do the Chanukkah bush this year! I desperately wanted to be able to hang some funky holiday stockings from the mantle this year, so I decided to really push myself beyond my sewing comfort zone for this project. I figured this would be a relatively easy project for a beginner sewer and, if they turned out terribly, they might at least provide a few good laughs along the way.

I picked out fabric for the stockings online and at the local JoAnn shop. I have to admit that I am in love with fabric that I picked out for Steve's stocking and we might just have to have twin stockings. I found a pretty decent free pattern online for the stockings and then amended it a little to better suit my vision. Using the pattern cutout, rotary cutter and mat, I cut the fabric to form. I was thinking that the fabric alone might not be strong enough to support the stockings with gifts inside, so I did a little internet research and came up with idea of using fusible fleece (also ran it by a friend who sews and she thought it was a decent idea). So, I also cut the fusible fleece to form.


After all of the fabric was cut to shape I fused the fleece to the fabric by pressing the two together with an iron on the "wool" setting. I tried doing this both ways but it only seems to work with the iron pressing on the fabric (with the fusible fleece underneath). This part takes a little patience because you really need to let the iron sit on the fabrics for about ~10sec covering every inch of fabric.

After fusing the fleece to the "inside" of both pieces of fabric it was time to make the fuzzy cuff for the stocking. I found this really neat hot pink material on clearance at the store. While the fabric looks great, it really sheds (something we get plenty of with the doggies). Also, the presser foot of the sewing machine gets stuck in the "fuzz" so I ended up having to hand sew the cuffs onto the fabric. I don't actually think I would recommend this one -- probably best to stick with faux fur.

I also hand-sewed the hanging loop onto the cuffs. Once the cuffs and loop were sewn on, it was time to hit up the Hello Kitty machine. I pinned the layers together and put the foot to the pedal. I am still working on my technique so I will not be sharing an image of the inside of the stocking =)


After sewing up the sides and around the "foot," I finished the stocking by hand sewing the cuffs together. Finally, I flipped it to right-side out and POOF... Steve's stocking is complete!


Just for fun, here's a close-up of the fabrics...

Dishtowel apron

I'm back! The wedding was fantastic... just beautiful. I am anxiously awaiting the email from the photographers saying they have put up a sneak peek on their blog. It will be a couple weeks before all of the photos are posted. What an amazing day!

Now that the doctoral dissertation has been accepted by the editorial reviewers (Phinally Done) and the wedding is finished, I can craft again!!! I dusted off the Hello Kitty sewing machine the other night and reintroduced myself to the art of sewing. Amazingly, it came back to me pretty quickly. Perhaps this is not surprising considering my initial knowledge level was pretty slim!

I grew weary of sewing small pieces of scrap fabric together and decided to actually make something. I really wanted to make a full-length apron and holiday stockings before 2008 has passed, so I decided to amend my desires a little to fit the time constraints. The stockings are the big project and I will post a separate blurb about that over the weekend. I still have a few skills to pick up before the full-length apron can be accomplished so I decided to make it REALLY easy by sewing together a half apron.

I took a regular size dish towel that was lying around and found enough scrap material to act as the ties. I sewed the fabric ties to the corners of the towel and POOF -- I have an apron. I actually like the towel material because it's easily washable and feels substantial when I am wiping my hands off. Tomorrow I will find the camera so I can take a picture of my first official sewing project.