Four Mini Stockings--Second Finish for 4th Quarter Finish A-Long

Here it is the end of October. I had planned to accomplish so much more than I did this month; but I still made progress on my list which is TERRIFIC! I did complete two finishes. I also met my goal of quilting the center of the BOM mystery quilt. As for the other three listed projects, I worked a bit on each one. A finish for those will also happen. . .just when is yet to be determined!

The mini stockings

I was going through a scrap bag of my friend, Martha, and discovered a plastic bag with four mini stockings cut out along with a paper pattern. She often made little items like these for gift giving. It looked like from the paper pattern that there was a contrasting cuff, heel and toe. I rummaged through my small scraps and found a piece of red fabric for the contrasting items and a little piece of Silk Radiance for the lining. I even had some ribbon in my stash for the hangers. Robert Kaufman stopped producing Silk Radiance. I only purchased it twice; but, I loved using it. I wish I had purchased more; but, that is a story for another time.

There were no directions about how to proceed. I sketched a pattern for the contrasting cuff, toe and heel and cut out enough pieces for four stockings. I cut out the lining pieces.

Then it was time to start stitching! I topstitched the contrasting pieces to the stocking first. I figured out where I wanted the hanger and stitched it into the cuff. I stitched the lining to the top of the stocking and under stitched it. When I completed that step, I moved on to stitching the lining to the stocking. I left a small section unstitched and used that hole to turn the stocking right side out. It didn't take long to hand stitch that two inch section closed. I stuffed the lining into the sock. I pressed the stockings and they were finished! Hooray!!!

Parts in progress

These could be tree ornaments filled with a little treasure for a special somebody. They could be part of a holiday place setting or perhaps, they could end up decorating a special package.

Each stocking is about three inches wide and about six inches high. I figure that I might have used about a fat eighth of fabric; but, the amount is so small that I'll roll the amount into a finish using more fabric. This is my second finish and goal number 22 on my Fourth Quarter goal list.

Stockings ready for duty

This month, I trained 26 in Basic Life Support (268 YTD); 47 in swimming lessons ( 81 YTD), 19 in CPR for the Lay Responder (26 YTD). This is a total of 92 for October. (489 YTD). I worked as a sub on a Saturday morning and in three hours 47 was the number of participants that came to the six classes I taught. If I were to count the parent that came with the child to the parent/child lessons, I would have taught 62 people! My new black suit swam just fine!