DIY: Christmas Stockings

To make space for my excitement of the holidays, my wedding recap posts will take a bit of an unexpected and brief hiatus. I can't help myself, as much as I am incredibly excited to share my wedding with you all I want to do right now is share these christmas stockings that I made!

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Since this is Jack's and my first Christmas away from home, we want to make it extra special. In part, to kick off our life together but also because we will surely miss our families this holiday season. Stockings were clearly a must! Since nothing in-store matched the vision I had in my mind, we decided to make them ourselves!

I began by guess-timating the size we wanted. Growing up, the stockings at my home were always quite small, while Jack's family had the jumbo size; we chose somewhere in the middle. I sketched out a shape I like that we could use as a pattern.

I didn't have any chalk so I used a silver gel pen I had left over from last Christmas to outline the pattern on the fabric. I outlined and cut the lining first, and the fabric second. A lining isn't really necessary however, I'm hoping that these will be around for a while and I would like them to not become mis-shapen. 

This was the first time I've used my sewing machine since I got it last Christmas. It's been sitting in my closet, unused and intimidating as ever. My sewing was not as smooth as I would have liked but I did it, and the corners aren't too jagged. 

Since I was a little wild with the sewing machine I opted out of using it for the details. Instead I grabbed my needle and thread and sewed our fur trim by hand. I wasn't quite sure how I would sew the accent on discretely when we first chose it but luckily the thread hid the fur easily - so easily! In retrospect, I should have sewn the fur trim onto the top of the lining and main fabric, bringing the lining all the way up to the top of the fur. It would have been cleaner but I'm just happy I got the stockings done in under 8 hours.

I tried ironing on the letters like the directions said and failed miserably. Actually, I think it's safe to assume the glue on the back of the letters dried up over time and failed themselves, but the moral is glue guns solve everything!

To be honest, these aren't perfect. The should-be rounded toe has some very geometric edges and the fur cuff is scratchy on the inside for about two inches but I wouldn't trade them for anything - even these. I love that Jack and I chose all the parts together , and that I sewed them while we watched the holiday classic, Ghost Busters. Perfect way to build a new kind of Christmas!