On Stockings

I have a confession.  I still have a stocking from Father Christmas.  I'm 30 years old and I've obviously scraped through each year being good enough to merit a visit, regardless of whether there's even been a chimney to get down.  For at least 28 of the last 30 years I've had the same stocking; it's thick green cotton fabric printed with Father Christmas' front and back and matches my sister's which is red with a teddy on it. Mum made them and their earliest recorded use appears to be 1982 when photographic evidence shows a two and a half year old me (with classic early '80s bowl haircut) 'assisting' my ten day old sister to open her stocking.  Zee may only just have forgiven that particular infringement.

Anyway, I knew that despite any number of quite cute stockings in a variety of shops I wanted to make one for Kitty so with a week to go until Christmas I pulled all of the Christmassy fabrics out of the stash and printed out a template from the internet (it's from Cath Kidston but the link I had doesn't seem to work any more).


I wanted something that was Christmassy but also felt quite girly and very Kitty; something that you would look at and instantly know that it was Kitty's stocking not H's or mine.

In the end after much deliberation and playing I took apart a Moda 'Let it Snow' jelly roll that is supposed to be part of a Christmas quilt that I started a couple of years ago and fished out a few strips, and then cut up the remains of the pink spotty fabric that I used to make a little pig squishy box toy for Kitty when she was just a bump. 

I sewed the strips together to make a width of patchwork fabric and then folded it in half selvage to selvage and cut out the stocking pattern through the double layer to make each outside half of the finished stocking.

I then made a sandwich of: lining right side up, lining right side down, back right side up and front right side down and sewed around the sides and foot leaving the top open.  Clip the curves and turn the front inside out around the back and the two linings and you have a lined stocking.

I finished the top with another jelly roll strip, folded in half and sewn edges together to the top.  I then flipped the stocking inside out and hand stitched the fold down to the stitching line on the inside, as if I was binding a quilt.

The ribbon to hang the stocking was machine sewn in with the binding; I positioned it slightly off the back seam to avoid too much bulk so it's just slightly to the front of the stocking.

The ribbon itself is part of my special VV Rouleaux stash - precious for the memories it holds of a wonderful trip to London with H and perfectly appropriate for a little girl's stocking.

And if Kitty every gets bored with a blue and pink stocking, the lining is her other option;


I didn't have enough contrasting fabric in any one colour to make a plain lining, and as I was making this the weekend the snow came and I didn't want to venture into town to try to buy some I picked out some green strips from the same jelly roll and went for it.

Definitely a success and happily as the website isn't working any more I've saved the pattern template - something, possibly 28 and a half years of sisterly love, tells me that should Kitty ever be joined by any more tiny bears it might be a good think to be able to make them identically sized stockings!