Can't go a year without making stockings

I apparently can't make it through the year without making stockings. I didn't want to repeat my Christmas wreath from last year. Plus I just really wanted a gray polka dot and red stocking. (I think my door looks funny with an evergreen wreath since there is only dead vegetation near my front porch.)

I love these skinny stockings. I wish this picture wasn't crooked. 

More Stocking Boards

So last December I never got all my crafts posted. I wanted to, but.... Then by the time I got around to it in February I thought no one really wants to see Christmas, so I posted them for a year in the future.

I already posted these boards, a year and half ago. 

My sister added the holy to this board, and I have to say I love it.

My sister in law made these stockings not me.

Two Grandson Stockings

My mom had two grandson's born this year. Mine fourth child and my younger brother's first child. Its a good thing I made my son's stocking last year, because I just wasn't feeling too crafty this year.
It took me a long time to embroider any of these names.
But then it turned out I re-embroidered my third child's name, because I was never happy with how it turned out.

I was feeling so uncrafty I didn't even take a picture of my baby's stocking by itself.

My youngest's cousin's.

Mini Stockings

 My husband's parents are serving a mission for our church and we needed to send them a christmas present. The only thing I could come up with is mini stockings.

The kids had a great time stuffing them for their grandparents.

I used the same pattern as last year, and didn't change the pattern at all.

Stocking Boards

A few Christmases ago I made myself a stocking board since we have no fireplace. I used an old family home evening board. Well a few months ago someone we knew moved and gave Brent two propane tanks. When she dropped them off she said, could you use a family home evening board? I said I already have one, she said come on, you know you know someone who needs one. I said sure, because rule one of getting free stuff from someone: you have to take more than you want. Two of my siblings don't have fireplaces either, so I turned these two give away boards into stocking boards for them. I really really love them. 

 I peeled off the vinyl, scrubbed off the leftover adhesive and then added one more coat of black paint. I traced/free handed the lettering, with a silver sharpie just like I did with mine.

 Did I mention I love both of these boards? My siblings both picked out their fonts. Also turns out you could use a stocking board on your fireplace. *Say what? mine blown*

Another link to my board.

One Last Stocking

This is the essentially the first year we are spending Christmas at home.  So I get to start new traditions if I want.  A tradition I've always liked is the white stocking.  Not familiar look here or here. Everyone writes down on a piece of paper what gift they are going to give Jesus in the coming year.  So last Saturday I made a little white stocking.  I can't wait to do it with my kids and husband, tomorrow night.  Give us a minute or two to focus on our Savior instead of Santa and presents.

P.S.  I don't really like the pattern I used to shape the stocking, maybe one year I'll fix it.

Another Stocking

When I am great with child, as I currently am, I have to make my unborn baby a stocking.  I just can't let them be stocking less until the next year.  (The only other time I was great with child over christmas was 8 years ago with my first.) By christmas I'll only have 6 weeks left, let me assure you, this baby is a living presence in our lives.  He effects everything we do, so he needs a stocking, even though he doesn't get any gifts.

This red is a deeper red than it looks in the picture.  That's what you get when you are lazy and use cell phone pictures.  Second, I bought this material years and years and years ago, and still love it, so I used it for my baby.  The trim is yellow chevron, so it will one day be out of fashion. But it matches so well.

 Here's all six stockings.  I don't plan the materials at all, but I realized they match quite well with each other.

I probably have a name picked out, but I'm not committed enough to embroiderer it on this year.
P.S. Aren't my Jim Shore Santas cute? My mom and I went a little overboard one year.

More Stockings

I know you have been waiting and waiting to see the rest of the stockings I made this year.  I was having technical difficulties with the blogger app on my new google phone.  Which I never did solve, BUT my pictures automatically update to my google account, and then I just select what I want to put in the post.  Its amazing! On to the point of the post.  The stockings, I really love what I made this year.

 I wish I could explain how much I love these stockings.

 Also I made a tree skirt for my sister.  I figured might as well pick material that matches with anything!

 The back/the reversible other side.

 Hope she liked it, the fabric was a little different style then I picked for the tree skirts I made the previous two years.

#4

When I told my brother I was expecting again, his response was the race to four is on. He and his wife beat me by months, which was expected. So I made them this blanket and stocking.

I love the embroidery on this blanket, it looks so jaunty, which I feel is fitting for the name. 

And here is the stocking, I really love how it came together, I hope she liked it. 

In their family they have two red stockings, a green stockings, a blue stocking, and then another mostly green stocking, so when i found this fabric I hoped this stocking would sort of tie everything together. 

Pattern

After years of making dozens of stockings, I finally made a PATTERN!

Hopefully this makes my life easier over the years. Although at least half my siblings are done having babies, and I am definitely winding down so I guess I'm getting near the end of my stocking career for many years, until my kids get married. So bizarre!

Second stocking

Two and half years ago my sister had a second daughter, so two years ago I made my niece a stocking. Except the mailman stole it (ie it was lost in the mail). Last year they were moving so my sister said don't worry about it. So this year I finally made my niece a second stocking. Here it is.

The end of Christmas in July

I finished my stocking board and I'm so very proud of it.  I can't wait until December, but mostly because my baby will be four months, and so life will be easier, and he will be more fun than he will be say in September.

 Need another shot?  The board looks really pink in the pictures, but it is red.  Remember how I like my finished wood project variegated. If you scroll through my painted wood label at least half are variegated paint.  Its just so much fun to only sand off half the paint off, and the do a wash with the paint.

 Once again no cricket, so I did the lettering the old fashion way.  Traced a print out, like this tutorial, then re-wrote over the tracing with a silver sharpie.  Then it wasn't thick enough for my taste, so I cut off the tip of the sharpie, to make it wider.

I love my holly.  I made the same flower rosette as I've in the past, except for smaller and wider, so they look more berry like and less flower like.  Then cut out leaves and put batting inside.  I'm really quite pleased with my free motion sewing leaf veins.

Christmas in July

Remember how we talked about how maybe I'm not so sane in my eighth month of pregnancy?  Well I figured I might as well make my baby a stocking now, instead of in a few months when life could be potentially crazier.  The stores are already selling christmas material so why not.  Well I got out my other stockings and I got out my christmas material, and decided I've never really liked my daughter's stocking.  So I pulled it all apart, and made a better one. It goes so much better with the family's pile of stockings.

Here is the before of her stocking, here it is with the whole family's stockings, see it just didn't match. It needed more green.

  Then I set about making my new son's stocking.  I absolutely love this christmas material, and find it very challenging to match, but I think the black polka dots worked well.

Oh and you were hoping to see his name... all in good time, my eight faithful blog followers.
So here is my happy little family of five stockings.  I decided I'm making a "the stockings were hung" board since I don't have a fireplace. (I bought my friend's Family Home Evening board, for $2 at her garage sale and am refinishing it.)

Then as I stared at the stockings I realized the embroidery on my firstborn's stocking has always looked awful, so I unpicked and redid that.  Plus I have never liked the shape of the toe on his, so I fixed that too.  Can you see the difference from the pictures above and this one.

Ahh, Christmas.

Stockings for the Nieces

This year I had three neices, and I made them all stockings.

The first stocking I used tulle for trim, because I liked how that turned out last year, plus it goes with that family.

But then I completely dreaded making more stockings, eventhough I love tulle, I couldn't handle anymore gathering. I still two more nieces that need some stockings, plus two more on top of that for my parent's collection of grandchild stockings (they only had two granddaughters, the third niece belongs to a different grandma.) So Instead I went to the store and bought rick rack.

I decided for my parents collection, it would be fun if they had completely opposite stockings with the same material. Bonus, is I used up absolutely all of this material, no left overs to store. Also I'm fairly lazy, so I don't embroiderer the whole name if it has a shortened name on grandchildren stockings. I rarely call my son his shortened name, but yet his stocking at grandma's is shortened. Bonus, is I used up absolutely all of this material, no left overs to store.

They all get scotty dog stockings, because I was at the store with my mom when I picked out the material, and she likes scotty dogs.

Teeny Stocking

With some scraps my mom and I made this teeny stocking.

When I hung it up, I asked my son if it was cute, he said yeahh... cuter than Nan. I laughed so hard. Normally he thinks his sister is the cutest thing, especially when she is in dresses and wearing things like flower clips. He likes 'em girly.

More Stockings

I also ended up making 5 stockings for a sister in law and her family, for the family gift exchange present. She left a comment years ago saying she liked them. You should be careful what you post on my comments. I have been slightly obsessed with tulle since my daughter came into the picture.

I'm always surprised what stocking ends up being my favorite for the year. This ended up being my favorite, I absolutely loved how the prints and the colors look together.

09 Stockings

Here are two stockings I made. One for my brother's girlfriend. He requested green.

And one for my cute nephew. I miss him, it is the first year in at least 5 years if not more, I'm not going to see my brother's family for at least part of Christmas. It is sad, I miss all of them.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get any stitching to show up on the stocking top. I also wanted yellow rick rack for the border, but couldn't find the right shade, and I was so tied to the idea of yellow that I bought bias tape to go under some red.

Countdown

You might have thought I was counting down to the baby born, but no I'm counting down to CHRISTMAS!

I made an advent calendar for this year. I plead insanity for the moment I designed it.

I sewed 24 little stockings, to help my child count down. They are about three inches high, needless to say it took a near eternity, I didn't think I would finish them in time, for the beginning of December.

The garland that the stockings hang on took FOREVER to make, literally. I spent more than 4 hours on the garland. I couldn't decided how to do the numbers, I didn't really want to use a fabric pen, but I definitely didn't want to embroidery the numbers, I ended up doing the tags. I think the tags are cute, and it was a very non committal way of doing it, next year I can always cut them off and chose to do them a different way.

I used left over halloween candy in the stockings. I thought it was ingenious of me to use Halloween candy, after I came up with it, I found multiple blogs suggesting it.

I love the stockings!!! I wish I would have taken a picture of them before I put the candy in, because the candy makes them a little droopy. I put the candy in on Sunday night after my kid was in bed, he didn't notice until around 4:30 pm on Monday. We played in the living room all morning, and he never noticed. He was very excited when he saw the candy, but then very sad when I told him we only got one a day, and we needed to wait until daddy got home from work. He was so happy when he finally got his piece of candy.

Add a fourth

Stockings are my favorite Christmas decoration. Here are my family's stockings so far. Please Please Please click on the link. I love them.
If you will recall, I went on a stocking craze last year.
Luckily this year, the only one in my family having a baby is me, which means, I only had to make stockings for one child. MINE!
So all I had to do this year was add a fourth to the family collection. Luckily I already had everything to make this stocking. My son picked the main material, out of a stack of Christmas material.

I had to buy the green bobbles for this stocking, but that is all. At first I planned on keeping this one, but I'm afraid its too fancy, and I'll set too high of a precedence for my future children.

So I haven't really decided which one is staying at my house, and which one is going to live with all the cousins at grammy's. I like the green bobbles, and it is by far my son's favorite out of two. But I also the how the silver trim brings out the silver in the red material.
Not to mention, my husband confirmed my fears. My son was "helping" me sew the green trim on, and when we finished he went to show his dad. His dad, said pretty fancy, are jealous its not yours? Luckily my kid looked at him like he was crazy and said, no.