Marneymay

Wow a lot has happened in 2017.  After the loss of hubby's father and both of my parents we sold up the Little House on the Hill and I closed the Little House on The Hill blog. Hubby has retired from work and we have moved to Rockingham in WA, Woo Hoo  we had our first Christmas with our granddaughter.

Our grand daughter is old enough to understand Christmas and it was time to make a stocking for her. I made her parents one each and they hang them every year. I wanted to make her a stocking she could use for many years and was special for her. I gathered all the Christmas fabrics from my stash and tried to decide which ones to use. I ruled out any fabric that were to babyish or masculine. In the end I chose 11 different fabrics including some with snowmen, stars and hearts along with some plain fabric.

We had not unpacked completely and I could not find my pattern. Not to worry I purchased one of the few stockings left in the spotlight and used it to make a pattern. To get size I wanted I pinned the Spotlight stocking to calico and adding two inches.

The larger stocking ia used it for the pattern. To make the stocking  cut a back and a front foundation piece and a back and front from lining fabric. The lining was cut from a Christmas themed fabric.

The front foundation piece was covered using crazy patchwork.  I randomly picked from my chosen fabrics for a true crazy patchwork look.  I love crazy patchwork, you can do as much or as little as you like and the finished piece looks amazing.  Pintrest has some great crazy patchwork examples and Pintangle is a blog to go to for inspiration

When embellishing crazy patchwork the idea is to cover every seam. I used several hand embroidery stitches  including, stem, herringbone, lazy daisy, buttonhole, french knot and straight stitch. Other seems were covered with different embellishments such as ribbon, braid buttons and beads.  A great place to find embellishments is in the jewellery section of stores like Kmart, Target and BigW. The metal bells and wreaths on the stocking are from Christmas earrings.

For the back of the stocking I used two different fabrics to cover the foundation piece,

I visited Youtube and searched for How to make a Christmas Stocking. There is a lot of videos just choose the one you can follow easily. I followed the Missouri Quilt Company video

Sadly no photo of the finished stocking, I completed it just in time for Santa to fill it.  Our little one calls him HO HO HO. 

Here are photos of the ones I made her parents. 

Cheers Pauline