Christmas Stocking--A Finish!

Beginning to pair the pieces with fabric

Goal number four on my May list was to sew a Christmas stocking for our youngest granddaughter. I thought that I would make progress on the project last month; but, I only selected the fabric and located the pattern. 

I clipped the ReNae Merrill pattern from a September 2009 issue of a magazine.  I thought that it would take me three days to make the stocking.  It took me about seven!

First, I spent a day prewashing the fabric. I spent a day cutting out the fabric. I also printed and prepared the pattern pieces. There are 147 pieces in the spirals. Keeping the pieces organized, sewing them in the correct order was a feat! 

I decided to use a glue stick to adhere the papers to the fabric. I cut the pieces out with at least a quarter inch seam allowance. I tried the Dollar Store brand glue stick, the SewLine glue pen, Elmers Glue stick and Elmers regular glue.

Fabric cut and ready for paper piecing

I liked how easy it was to remove the papers with the Dollar Store brand, Jot, from the fabric. It was, however, a challenge to get the paper to stick to the fabric. The regular Elmers was too wet. The SewLine glue pen and the Elmers glue stick had similar results. I used as light as possible application of the Elmers glue stick.

Cutting a different fabric for the body of the sock

At the last minute, I decided to switch out the red print fabric for the body of the sock, to the purple hand dye. The reason for the switch was I had a plan for the center of the spirals. I decided I would like the end result better if the center fabric matched the sock body fabric.

Slowly creating the spiral

Even though this is a paper foundation piecing project, I decided not to sew through the paper. Instead, I tacked the first piece to the paper. For the rest of the pieces, I folded the paper out of the way before stitching the seam. This technique allowed me to pull the center off the paper foundation. The foundation was intact so there was no paper removal.

Sock ready for embellishment

Once I finished piecing the three sections, I stitched the sections together. The directions used a three eighths seam allowance. This size seam allowance worked well. Next it was time to add the embellishment in the center of those three spirals.

Embroidered letters

Using my embroidery module, I determined the size and font of letter that filled the center hexagon shape. I embroidered a number of letters before I found the font and size I felt worked the best. I had sweaty palms when it came to doing the actual embroidery! The process went well even though it took me all day to embroider three letters!

Back of the finished stocking

Next, I layered the front and the back of the stocking and quilted each. For the back of the stocking, I used the printed fabric lines on the lining as quilting lines. I used a red aurifil cotton thread.

Thread and detail of quilting

For the front of the stocking, I stitched in the ditch in all the seams with a cotton Masterpiece thread made by Superior Threads. For the background of the stocking I quilted spirals and in the background behind the letters, I quilted bubbles in a thread that was close to the color of of the background.

Finished stocking

Once I finished the quilting, I stitched the front and back together. I added the cuff and hanger. I'm considering adding a label somewhere. I used one and three quarters yards of stash for this project. This brings my total of stash used this year to three quarters of a yard! Once I finish some other larger projects, I'll be able to document even more stash usage!

This project was made from scraps so I'm linking to Cynthia at Oh Scrap/Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework.