Christmas stockings in progress

I have been wanting to make Christmas stockings for my husband and myself since we got married. I decided to wait until after we had children to do it, though, so we could have a family set. I did not get to make them in time for Kiarda’s first Christmas, given that at that time I was averaging about three hours of sleep a night spread across the entire night.

Anyways, I finally made a decision about how best to create the images in my head about how I wanted them to look: wool felt! I’m about halfway done with them so far, so here’s a picture.

Each will have a white cuff with the person’s name on it. There will be a few embroidered details, as well as a few snowflake sequins added to the background of each one. I think I will opt for a “less is more” with these – I want them to be whimsical and too much detail can detract from that. The stockings will be lined. I may use fun prints for the insides…will have to dig through my stash and see what I can find!

Christmas swap top completed!

I finally made a decision about the borders after much deliberation and several inputs – thanks everyone! I opted for a narrow inner border in cream, with the green holly fabric as a larger outer border. I’m pleased with how it turned out. I’ll probably bind it in either cream or red – or maybe mix it up like a candy cane? That might be too much. We’ll see. I’m glad I finally got this done – I’ve had the borders cut and sitting on my ironing board for a month. It’s about time!

It turned out much larger than I had thought it would be in my head, oh well! I’m holding it up as high as I can, and I’m 5’8″ – DH couldn’t even get it all in the picture. Sorry the color is a bit off, but you can get the idea.

Miniature Booty Swap

Made this for the Miniature Booty Swap, holiday edition…wonder who it’s for? 😀 I’m going to assume that most of the participants don’t check every participating blog to try and guess which quiltlet is theirs, and I’m also relatively anonymous. I haven’t done this swap before, but I was asked to participate because I’m friends with Toni. 😀

I goofed a bit on the paper-piecing, but it worked out okay. I got the last bits for my package ready today, and once I get the ornament in the mail it’ll be ready to send off!

Christmas Stockings

A good friend of mine commissioned me to make her family a set of Christmas stockings. I had made her at table runner last year

with some great paisley fabrics

that she loved, and I liked quite a bit as well. I found those same fabrics on clearance a few months ago and bought yards and yards of all of them. She was quite excited when I told her I could make the stockings out of those fabrics. She requested that they be simple in nature, and that the parents’ stockings were different from the kids’ stockings. I made the first one last night, and finished it up this morning:

I am going to use the green paisley with white cuff and red embroidery for the parents’ stockings, and the red paisley with a white cuff and green embroidery for the kids. The cuff and lining fabric is a cream-on-white paisley that is drool-worthy. This was my first time working with fusible fleece. I like it quite a bit, but it’s tricky to cut the seam allowance of the fabric larger than the fleece, in order to minimize bulk in the seams.

It’s a good size stocking – it’s hanging on the floor lamp switch and it’s right next to my thread rack. That should give you a sense of scale. I sent her the picture to approve before I make the other four. 😀