Martha: suck it!

This year, since we're a proper family and all, I decided I wanted real stockings to hang by our real chimney since we have a real house. Apparently the life before house/baby wasn't real. 

I looked on etsy and even though I found some really sweet possibilities, I didn't fall in love with any of those particular stockings. Sooooo, Bud suggested I make them. At first I balked because my stereotype idea of people who "craft" (as in, use the word as a verb) is a picture of someone in a home spun skirt and bun spending all day in front of her scrapbook, carefully deciding where to put the "funny" blurb above a picture of her husband watering the yard with a birthday cone cap on his head. Wow. Where did that come from? 

Unfair stereotypes aside, I'm just not a crafter. I wasn't born with that crafty gene where I look at a piece of fabric and go, you know what? I could SO MAKE THAT INTO SOMETHING.

Anyway and blah blah you know where I'm going with this, I in fact did take the plunge. 

Yesterday I picked up my fabrics, the idea being I would make plain stockings and then cut out wee little shapes to decorate the overly large faux socks.

 

The coarse, off-white fabric is my stocking-base and the other three are for embellishment. 

Last night with a little help from Bud's mom, I fashioned my own pattern on the back of a piece of wrapping paper. Free handing that sucker was nerve wracking. I sat there in front of the paper staring at it, it stared right back. I DARE YOU TO FREE HAND A GOOD STOCKING BITCH! Whoa, who knew wrapping paper could be so saucy? Bonnie had to remind me that a stocking is more of a SOCK and less of a BOOT which is what my first attempt looked like. 

I used the pattern and the fabric for the dog's stockings as practice. (And I know readers will fall into two distinct camps here: You PRACTICED with their stockings? What are they, chopped liver? AND Ha! You're making stockings for your DOGS? What are you? Some kind of overly sensitive ANIMAL LOVER? The answer to both is, yes)

You'll note the cute little paws showing through. 

 

I decided though pretty close, I wanted ours to be a little taller and a little wider at the bottom.

 

This is as far as I've come. Part of me just wants to use some Elmer's glue and get the whole project over with, but I'm hoping to use an actual sewing machine and do these up right! I'll keep you posted.

Comments

[Madeleine Todd]

Go for the Elmer's glue!!! And then tell me how well they held presents on the big day. Oh, the pictures in my head.....

[Hope Sypert]

Oh. Good point. Hadn't factored in weight of gifts.